iBook coming to the end of its life

This is symptomatic of a too-full hard drive.

What is the hard drive capacity, and how much space remains available on it?

With a 10 GB hard drive, you are talking about a drive that is now 11 years old.

Hard drives fail. That's just a hard fact. This one has had a good run.

What does Disk Utility (Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility> tell you about the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive?

You haven't said exactly how much space remains available on the drive.

It is generally recommended to keep a minimum of 15% of the total capacity of the hard drive as free space. On a 10 GB hard drive, that would be 1.5 GB, which hardly seems enough these days. I always want to be sure to keep at least enough space to do an Archive and Install if necessary, and that means at least double the space it takes to do an install of the OS.

Cameron, how much RAM is installed? RAM sometimes fails, and that is one of the most frequent causes of kernel panics, although it seems like too much coincidence that it happened when you plugged in a USB drive.

What type of USB drive did you plug in? Flash drive or external disk drive? If you can give us a link to information on the drive you plugged in, that would be helpful.

It could be that it is a drive that is not backward-compatible to the USB 1.1 port of the iBook G3. Or the port may have failed. Did you try with the other port?

Is it really solved?

If so, can you tell us step-by-step how you did it?

Yes, all iBooks have logic board RAM and one user-accessible RAM slot. One model of the 500 MHz iBook G3 (Dual USB) (the one which was equipped with a CD-ROM drive as opposed to more fully functional optical drives) had 64 MB soldered to the logic board; the other 500 MHz models have 128 MB of logic board RAM. You will be happier with the iBook if you maximize the RAM with a 512 MB module.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/iBooks-PowerBooks/G3-iBook/

When I asked for information on the drive, I meant information regarding the specifications of the USB drive (make and model of the drive). I wasn't questioning you about the data on the drive. I'm sorry I wasn't clearer.

As Shakespeare noted, "All's well that ends well."

i just completed my end of life ibook g4 restore to life. i installed a 40g harddrive (that was dying issue) from http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Toshiba/MHW2040AT/.

and buy the tool set at $5-

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/TOOLKITMHD/. there are a lot of screws to remove and remember where they went!

there is a how to on the web-at

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iBook+G4+12-Inch+800+MHz-1.2+GHz+Hard+Drive+Replacem ent/166/1

i idif not do steps 24, 25 or 26, just pry the top case over that part. at step 30 be really careful when lifting top case off. make sure that the trackpad connector comes out of the socket without unglueing itself from the topcase. it is very very tricky to plug it back in. next, be careful with step 32 and 33. i left them attached and moved the top case up and taped it the screen, when you get to step 34 top shield, no need to take it off. just remove the screws from the lower left side and bend the shield up and out of the way to get to the hard drive below. be sure to check that out before screwing everything back. if you have an airport card, do not attach it until after loading all your software. mine gave me a kernel panic with airport card in.

this is typed from the newly resurrected ibook g4 with airport card!!