What Did You Do For Easter? I Dissected Two Laptops

It started Saturday while cleaning out the shed: I found my two old Apple iBooks, dead, but still resting comfortably in their cases. My 12" iBook suffered a motherboard failure five years earlier, and the iBook G4 14" lost its mind when the hard drive crashed. At the time it was too expensive to get either repaired as both had gone out of warranty, so they were banished to the shed.

Then it hit me: why couldn't I use both iBooks to create one, working laptop?

Of course the idea is fundamentally flawed, but it was Easter weekend and a time for resurrections.

I set out with my tools and a guide from iFixit. Taking apart any computer is challenging, but when dealing with an Apple product it becomes doubly so. It isn't a matter of just taking out some screws and lifting the case off, you have to use a spudger and spreader to pry the case apart. It's terrifying not knowing if you're making progress or about to completely break the thin, plastic clips that hold everything in place.

Here's the amazing part: I actually managed to get both iBooks apart without breaking them, recovered the hard drive from the working unit, and installed it in the iBook G4. I tapped the power button... and it turned on and booted up!

IT WORKED... For about an hour.

I must've shorted something when I put the iBook back together because now it won't power on at all. But for sixty glorious minutes I had performed an Easter Miracle: I resurrected my Apple iBook G4 from the dead.