iBook G4 hard drive workaround

I have an iBook g4, a few years old, which has a failing hard drive. I attempted to install Linux on it using several partitions, boot,usr,etc., but found a tremendous amount of errors on the fourth partition. I decided to go back to OSX, and installed it on the fifth partition, bypassing the apparent broken segments. The iBook seems fully functional, but with only about 30 gigs of hard drive space to use. At least it works... beats paying a load of bucks to have a new drive installed... yes?