Getting data off an old Apple hard drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Phisherman
  • Start date Start date
P

Phisherman

I friend has an Apple with a bad power supply so it won't boot. I
think it is Mac OS 8.2 or 8.3. She needs data off the hard drive. Is
there any chance this drive can be temporarily plugged into my WinXP
desktop or a Mac OS X laptop to retrieve a few files? If not, any
other ideas?
 
Phisherman said:
I friend has an Apple with a bad power supply so it won't boot. I
think it is Mac OS 8.2 or 8.3. She needs data off the hard drive. Is
there any chance this drive can be temporarily plugged into my WinXP
desktop or a Mac OS X laptop to retrieve a few files? If not, any
other ideas?
Click to expand...

First ask yourself what kind of a hdd it is. Older Apples used SCSI drives.
By OS 9 Apple was moving in the ATA direction and there was a high
probability that the drive would be something with 40 pins. That's almost a
certainty that it's pretty old if it's using OS 8.x. If it is ATA try
mounting it in an external enclosure that has a firewire connector. If your
laptop is running OS X there's a decent possiblity that you may be able to
view retrieve the files. If it is SCSI try getting a hold of a similarly
aged Apple machine and mount the hdd into it, substituting the drive for the
one that's already in there.
 
Phisherman said:
I friend has an Apple with a bad power supply so it won't boot. I
think it is Mac OS 8.2 or 8.3. She needs data off the hard drive. Is
there any chance this drive can be temporarily plugged into my WinXP
desktop or a Mac OS X laptop to retrieve a few files? If not, any
other ideas?
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_File_System

"HFS is still supported by current versions of Mac OS, but starting
with Mac OS X an HFS volume cannot be used for booting"

It sounds like you can plug the drive into the MacOSX laptop. All you need
is some kind of enclosure.

Paul
 
Ph-- the simplest solution, by far, is to replace the defective power
supply. You can probably get a leftover or even a used psu for $10 plus
shipping. The question is, are you sure the psu is bad?
 
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