Clamshell Upgrades

I purchased an original iBook Clamshell (300 MHz PowerPC 750 (G3) processor, 32 MB or 64 MB of RAM, a 3.2 GB hard drive, and 2X AGP ATI Rage Mobility graphics with 4 MB of VRAM) which had it's RAM upgraded to 256 and is running Panther earlier this year to be my first Mac rebuild.

With the economy in it's current state, I haven't been able to stash the cash away to make the upgrades, but I've applied to go work overseas for a year and will have little access to the internet and this is my only laptop so I will need to be preforming my upgrades before the year is out if not sooner.

I've done my research and gotten several tear down instructions. The actual installations seems fairly straight forth (I've rebuilt desktop PC at work and for fun). My desktop is an iMac Intel running Tiger.

My big question are:
1) Is an external hard drive the best bet for cloning the current OS off the measly hard drive and then booting from the external hard drive (will the Clamshell even boot from a USB external?)?
2) I've found Tiger upgrades available online ranging from $54 for a download to $250 for the DVD (which would then have to be sent to Apple for CDs). Is there anywhere I can get a full install disk? (even though it would have to be exchanged for CDs) I'd like to do a fresh install and make some changes to the set up of the machine (it's an eBay item, 'nuff said).

I got a iBook G3 "Paris" model ClamShell , Top of the line in that series from a co-worker. She couldn't find the restore disks so I looked on Ebay for a retail copy of Tiger and I wasn't going pay anywhere from $100 to $290 for it. I happened to be in a Apple store on weekend and talked to a employee and he said just call !-800-apl-care and tell that what you need. I called when I got home and the CSR asked for the serial number to log into the system and he said if I wanted a retail copy of Tiger, it would cost $16 plus tax(live in Calif.) and shipping. I received the DVD in a week.Yours will need to be on CDs and they will know that because of serial number you give them.
A harddrive upgrade on the ClamShell is a bear but if you take your time you'll be fine. Memory is a snap, one 256meg stick and you'll be maxxed out at 320meg.( combined memory on mother board).

Only Intel Macs can boot from USB, iBooks like mine with FireWire can boot from there.
I believe the Web site iFixit.com will show you how to crack open the iBook to get to the Airport card, harddrive and memory but thats only one, there are many more.
I can't remember right off the top of head but there is a size limit on the Harddrive and I beleave it's 120gig. You could ask when you call Apple.

I hope this little bit of info is helpful, Regards, Rick

cameraman,

Thanks! I will give Apple Care a call tonight (when I'm back with my iBook). Good to know that I can't boot from the USB and since my iBook lacks a FireWire port CD's it is. I was pretty use I was already maxed out on the RAM, so I'll start with the hard drive upgrade and go from there (3 GB's just won't survive overseas for a year+).

I did manage to get up a computer-to-computer network over the weekend and put all the files from my iBook over on my iMac without a problem. So know all I need is the Tiger disks and a new hard drive.

Thanks again!