My mac-mini has been in the family for years. I purchased it soon after they were launched and I was thinking the poor old thing was getting on in the years.

It's the main computer my parents use since macs are simpler to use. My parents are more email/skype sort of people, so it doesn't have to run a billion apps.

But the past few weeks, I've noticed that it was taking a while to start up applications. Then one day, the APPLE loading screen (gray screen with apple plus whirly loading icon thing) was just hanging around on the screen.

Uh-oh....

I inserted the MAC OS X disc and did a repair. That helped for a few days.

Then. It died.

The hard drive was kaput.

So I toddled over to Fry's and picked up a 160 gb (P)ATA HD. I'm gonna do some surgery! Cross your fingers for me, mkay?

They had a 300 gb one, but my parents were using a 60 gb without filling it up, so over 2x the hd space seems like plenty of elbow room. Especially since they probably need to upgrade to a faster computer eventually.

I mean, the specs on a common netbook is not much of an improvement on my mac-mini. The big plus would be the portability. So I'm going to operate this afternoon. *cracks knuckles*

I found this video online:
http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/mac_mini_g4_mem_hd_opt_h/

Now I just have to get some philips screwdrivers, and a putty knife.