How do I remove the hard drive to reinstall a new one on my 2004 ibook G4?

Question

My mom dropped it and now I can't reinstall anything on it. Can't find any directions in my user guide. And yes, she is paying for me to fix it.

Answer 1

If from the Installer disc, inserted in the computer, and used to start the machine,
(holding C key down) until you get the Installer, you do not choose to Install it at all;
but instead carefully click ahead only until there is a main menu bar in the top of
the screen, it would say Installer (instead of Finder) and in that bar across the top,
you have optional menus that can drop-down when you click on them.
From the Installer's optional drop-down menu bar, you can find Utilities; one of them
is Disk Utility, another is Startup Disk, and there are other items. If you use Disk
Utility, it can attempt to Repair disk, and also be used to Verify disk; choose Repair
and let it try to repair, since this will generate an Error report, if damaged or not fixable
with the tool you have. The Verify will check the SMART status of the hard disk drive.
It will likely show a 'failed' report. Disk Utility has two screens, one if you click on the
name of the hard disk drive, in the lefthand margin in D.U., and another if you click on
the brand name (not a given name, such as Macintosh HD, but Fujitsu, or Seagate, etc.)
When done with this confirmation exercise, you may be able to choose to Quit Disk Utility
from its own menu item, and return to Installer. Then choose Startup Disk from the same
menu drop-down you chose D.U. from, and see if the hard disk drive in the computer is
there to be chosen as a startup disk. It may show but not work. You may be able to get
the installer disc #1 out of the computer by holding down the F12; or if you have a USB
mouse, have that plugged in ahead of time, and hold the mouse down on restart to see
if this will eject the installer disc from the computer's optical drive.
If not, you will have to try one of the suggested methods of removing that disc; one of
them in another thread in Discussions pointed to a macbook topic link where a disc
was removed from a slot-drive and the process would be similar. Or, knowing where
the disc is, hope it can work from there later on, after replacing the hard disk drive or
using an external FireWire drive to install a test system to, and then eject that disc.
You may have lucked out & the hard disk drive may be the only casualty in this accident.
In your other thread on this topic, posted to the back of a 'solved' topic, I replied and
noted a different forum where two or three great links on how to remove and replace
an iBook G4's hard disk drive are posted. {I know, because I posted them there...}
" replacing an iBook G4's hard disk drive? "
http://www.applelinks.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/142/
Good luck & happy computing!