Uugh. Hard drive crashes. Very sucky. My iBook lies on a Apple-certified repairer's workbench. The hard drive is actually no longer the problem, since I successfully tore open the plastic case, unscrewed 30-40 screws, popped off the aluminum shielding, took out the clattering 40 GB factory-installed hard drive, and popped in a fresh 100 GB 2.5" hard drive from (you guessed it) Fry's Electronics. The iBook actually works OK. The problem is that (1) I've managed to render the CD-RW non-functional and (2) the latch has snapped off, so that the laptop fails to close. I won't even mention the lack of audio. I had accidentally torn out the wires that connect to the built-in speakers. (I had also accidentally torn out the wires that connect to the power switch.) I managed to fix the power switch, but since I didn't want to go screwing around trying to figure out which wire was live and which wire was ground, I just remnants to the inside of the case and let it be. That's what external speakers are for, anyway.