Looking for some help with my ibook clamshell.

Hi everyone, I have three questions about my ibook clamshell. I am relatively new to the Mac OS (About 3 months experience lol) I bought an iMac G5 to replace my burned out Windows Laptop, I was so impressed with the Mac OS that I decided to get a laptop for when I travel around the college. (All the computer specs are in my profile) My budget was tight, so I ended up buying a Tangerine Clamshell iBook from ebay. I've had it less than a day and I love it so far, My two questions concern expanding it:

1) I don't want to risk tampering with the already full 3 gig HD (It has Panther 10.3.9 on it), so I want to get an external HD. Since this is the original ibook it only has a USB 1 port. Can anyone recommend a decent model for me? Something in the 10gig-30gig range.

2) I want to install some programs like Microsoft Word, Itunes etc but there is only 400 mb free on the HD. Can an ibook read and use a programs like Word from an external HD? Also can ibooks use external dvd drives?

3) I want to transfer a lot of essays, mp3s etc from my iMac to the Clamshell. What's the best way to do this? Usb cables?

Thanks for your help in advance, I really appreciate it!

Well, I guess this doesn't quite answer your question, but definitely do some investigating in terms of how much hard drive space you can free up. This article gives some awesome tips for how to reclaim a lot of wasted space:

http://creativebits.org/2004/11/os-x-free-up-hard-disk-space.html

And to sum up that article, it's going to advise that you acquire the following free programs: DeLocalizer, Onyx or Cocktail (pick either), and iPhoto Diet, among other neat tricks to reclaim space.

After you've done that, see if GDisk might be able to help you out: http://gdisk.sourceforge.net/

As for External HD's, I have a LaCie drive that I'm very happy with--it's about the size of an index card and holds 40 gigs. But while you're shopping, keep your eye on cheap.typepad.com, www.slickdeals.net, and www.dealmac.com. Sometimes good External HD deals go through there.

I've been using my 300MHz iBook for 6 years, so far...

1. You really should replace the hard drive. I did mine by myself w/ instructions I got off the internet. It seems scary, but honestly the hardest part is keeping track of the screws.

2. I thought about an external drive too, but i just know in my gut that USB 1.1 is way too slow to be practical. And good luck in finding a drive that will work on 1.1!

3. Yes, you can install apps on other volumes (to use Macspeak). During the install process you are given the opportunity to pick which disk volume to install to.

4. Where are these files you want to transfer? I've done lots of file transfer mac to mac using a "crossover" ethernet cable. "Crossover" meaning the connections on one end are reversed so you can connect two computers directly. I understand modern Macs can use either "crossover" or not, but the original iBook, at least, can't. Setting up the computers for sharing (hint: "file sharing". look it up) is easy but not necessarily intuitive. It will be a good lesson for you. Finally, if both computers have airport cards, you can do it directly wirelessly too.

5. Let me say it again, USB is great, but USB 1.1 is slow. Too slow for iPod transfer or external HD's IMHO.

6. A thumb drive is an excellent way to transfer files. In fact I did transfer iTunes files this way, but not my whole library. WARNING.. get the skinnest thumb drive you can. The clamshell case will prevent you from inserting a thumb drive that is too wide. I also use my thumb drive a lot for PC - mac file transfer.

7. Your clamshell can use a 512MB RAM module (I recently took mine out to put into my 900MHz iBook). Go to www.4allmemory.com You select your computer model and they tell you what memory they have that works. That's how I got mine.

8. Replace the hard drive. You really do not want to compromise the portability by dragging around an external drive. Also the OS uses GIGAbytes of drive space for virtual memory. With your current situation, performance is hampered.

9. W/ the setup I had - 40GB drive, 512MB RAM installed - performace was good enough. Panther was, interestingly, a noticable performance improvement over Jaguar. Expose worked much better than I thought it would. The worst app was the OS email client - it was horrible under Jaguar and I was using Eudora in classic mode instead. Panther improved it significantly. MS office worked fine, I was running the OS 9 version in classic mode.

What's the HD?

Would you mind telling me what type/brand of HD you put in your clamshell? Oh and thanks for all the great help! :headphone

tinyteddy said:

Would you mind telling me what type/brand of HD you put in your clamshell? Oh and thanks for all the great help! :headphone

Click to expand...

I don't recall the brand. It's been a couple of years now. But I bought my drive from 4allmemory at the same time as my memory.

I want to remember that I found my specs on apple.com to check the drive's particulars and then picked a 40MB drive of that size. Then I emailed them to make sure it would work. It mounted perfectly.