my ibook g4 is running very slow lately, and I haven't used the install disc before. would it be a good idea to reformat/reinstall it now? would microsoft office for mac run just by copy-paste, or do I need to retain the libraries? for the iphoto library, i will just copy the entire library and select the library when I open iPhoto? sorry for the many questions, what I have now is just the ibook install discs... hope you can help me out in planning this
have you tried disk repair? or repair permissions? can you back up your files muna before reinstalling? parang ms office for mac will run just fine via copy and paste. at least that's what i did before...
@enuhski yup i will backup the Home and Application folder (copy/paste) and restore it afterwards (but be selective in the apps to restore). Is there a freeware where I can test the integrity of the restore discs before I initiate the reinstallation?
Maybe the HD is almost full. Back up everything, then try getting rid of files, music, videos, apps, and other stuff you don't need. There are threads somewhere here about trimming the fat out of OS X, like getting rid of unused languages, etc. Then repair permissions. If that doesn't speed things up, its time to get a bigger HD.
I concur. The standard ibook G4 came with a pretty small HD and with just the usual MS office files and media files, it fills up. How much free space do you have? If its less than 20% to 30% of the size of the HD, you really need to clean out your disk. One good place to start is to look at your email. If you file a lot of old emails, this can balloon to 8 GB.
i only have a 40Gb HDD. I have no plans on investing on this machine anymore I just want it to function speedily for net/doc writing tasks
Yes, the machine must be heavily fragmented by now. I suggest you Google Apple's guide on how to backup a Mac. It may be OS X version specific. I have the guide but it is printed. This covers all native Apples apps and key chains. All personal data and apps must be copied to an external drive or cd. iTunes need you to burn the files on cd or dvd. Sorry it cannot backup to a hard drive. Silly. If you are using Leopard then just backup using Time Machine. Install OS X then restore. As for 3rd party apps, just run the restored apps and see which ones work. reinstall those that do not.
1. with 40gb HDD, please keep 7-10gb of free space to allow for OS X to file swap efficiently. If not, please delete files to create free space. 2. if you have 7-10gb free, and its still slow, try repair disk permissions through Disk Utility 3. repairing disk permissions didn't make your iBook faster? try to create a new Admin User, and log on to it. chances are it will be faster. if faster, transfer your files/documents from the other user account (NOTE: DO NOT rename your username account home folder, you will lose access to your files!) 4. if a new user account is still slow, then try to Repair Disk through Disk Utility, or use Disk Warrior. 5. When all else fails, reinstall OS X Tiger, with your files safely on back up. Upgrades you may consider: 1. maximize the RAM, they are now affordable, find them at tipidpc.com 2. replace with a bigger capacity hard drive (2.5" IDE drives are hard to find now so you may want to avail of them while supplies last, also at tipidpc.com) or use an external drive to avoid filling up your OS drive
@pael: Download the Mactracker App here: http://mactracker.ca/ and look up the specs for your iBook G4 as to the max RAM.
I think it can take 512mb for each slot. You'll get a little over 1gb ram because of the built-in memory. Ram will not speed up you mac per se. It will speed up if you experience a lot of beach balls before the upgrade. For a peppy iBook G4, use OS X 10.4 fully updated. Then use apps form that era. New apps may require more. I was able to run Leopard on my old iBook G4 12" but it was definitely quicker with 10.4. Also a bit of headroom with hard disk space will help. The Mac uses the hard disk as temporary memory too.
Leopard works ok but not blistering speed on an iBook G4. Expect a bit of waitin time when opening apps or rendering stuff.
