How to get data off Quadra 650's hard drive

My brother has an old Quadra 650 that has some old design projects on it that he would like to get off. The hard drive won't boot and he is frustrated with the task of trying to figure out why. I am hoping to help him get to his old design files another way.
I have an old Sawtooth G4 450 that has the Classic environment still on it inside OS X 10.2 and can be booted to OS 9. Also have old Adobe software and fonts on the machine, from using the machine for freelance design before getting my Mac Pro. So, what I'm hoping is that I can take the drive from his Quadra 650 (SCSI-based) and connect it to something I have and get the data off of it. With the 650's drive being old and SCSI, I'm not sure what options I have.
Any advice?

There are several difficult ways to transfer the files, once you establish that the drive is alive and the files are there.
AppleTalk-
This requires a Mac with a built-in serial port running 9 or earlier, OR an AppleTalk-over-Ethernet adapter such as AsanteTalk or Farallon EtherMac iPrint LT.
Ethernet-
This requires your Ethernet capable Quarda 650 to have a cheap Transceiver to convert its built-in AAUI-15 Ethernet port to the now-ubiquitous RJ45 twisted-pair Ethernet cable. Luckily, these are readily available on the used market:
eBay search for: (apple,mac) (AAUI,transceiver, RJ45,twisted) -(usb,coax,bnc,RAID,fibre,10base2,thinet,AppleTalk)
Dialup-
If you have a modem connection to the Internet, you could email the files to yourself.
SCSI on another Mac-
Getting a SCSI card, drive enclosure, cable, Terminator, and getting it all to work may be too daunting for a one-off data transfer, but is doable.
Floppy disk-
You would need a USB diskette drive on another Mac. These USB drives are capable of reading 1.4MB Mac-formatted floppies only (not 800K diskettes).
USB thumb drive-
USB support probably requires 8.6, which you may not have and your Mac may or may not run, plus you need a PCI-slot card.
FireWire-
Firewire support probably requires 8.6, which you may not have and your Mac may or may not run, plus you need a PCI-slot card. Your Mac does not support Firewire Target Disk mode.

Similar Messages

Getting data off a (very) old hard drive

I'm a personal assistant and have just been handed a closet full of old Apple IIci with instructions to get everything off the drives and then junk them.
I am at a loss. I was just going to grab a box of floppies from one of the local computer stores but after being giggled at a few times when I called to ask if anybody carried them I'm wondering if there's another way to do this. I think he also wants to be able to see what is ON them and doesn't have a floppy drive which puts a bit of a damper on the convenience of that idea.
Any and all suggestions welcome!

First of all, in order to avoid any confusion with the older Apple II series, please confirm that you are referring to the Macintosh IIci.
Are the Macintosh IIci computers fully functional (complete with monitors)? Could you perhaps give us some details about the operating system(s) used? Information about file types, programs et cetera could be useful, too.
One can use standard 1.44 MB HD diskettes with the IIci. It is also possible to carry out transfers via one of the serial ports. If at least one of the IIci machines has an Ethernet card installed, a connection to an Ethernet-based network could be another option.
Do you have access to a semi-old Mac, a modern Mac, or possibly only a PC? One could per se connect an external USB floppy drive to a modern computer, but there may be other limitations that will have to be taken into account.
Jan

How to get data off old LC III drive

I have our first LC III computer that I gave to our in-laws...now they want data off of it and I don't know how to get it off easily. The HD is a SCSI interface I think...can I use a SCSI to usb cable? This machine was pre-ethernet, so no communication interface other than the printer port and a port for and old style modem.

Hi,
It is not so easy to gain direct access to data on an old SCSI hard drive via a modern computer.
An alternative could be to use 1.44 MB floppy disks for transfers. Another semi-old (pre-1998) Mac with Ethernet could then read these floppies and forward the data files over a network. A newer Mac would require a USB floppy drive.
A Windows PC, with a floppy drive and a utility such as TransMac for the handling of Mac disks, could also be used.
Yet another solution could be a serial null-modem transfer. See the following discussion for details:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4974860?start=0&tstart=
Jan

Can I get files off of my old hard drive?

So, I've been going through a whole lot of trouble lately with my late 2011 Macbook Pro. A little over a week ago it wouldn't start up, and after attempting the recovery process I learned that I had a corrupted hard drive. The problem was I had a partially written 50000 word novel on there which I hadn't backed up. I'm aware that that was incredibly stupid of me, and I usually always back my work up, but I guess because I'd just purchased this macbook in July I didn't expect to have a problem so soon. Anyway, I took it to the apple store and by hooking it up to genius bar OS instead of my own they were able to get into my hard drive and they let me extract the files I needed, and then proceeded to replace my hard drive which took about four days. I just went back to look at the novel after getting the computer back today, and I realized it somehow only got half of it; maybe it was in two documents or something that I missed, I'm not sure what happened, but it's missing a hundred pages.
So, long story short, I need to get back on my hard drive again. They gave the old one to me, but the last thing I want to do is go through the whole entire process of switching drives again, because I need this computer to work on and it would undoubtedly take forever to do. What I'm asking is, does anyone know if there's another way to retrieve these files? Would the apple store be willing to let me load it onto a different computer so I can still keep my own to work on? I know it's probably a long shot, but I'm about ready to give up and this is my only hope.
I'll be returning there tomorrow afternoon, because apparently on top of all of this they did something to my battery while replacing the hard drive, and now it's coming up as not available and it relies entirely on the power adapter to function. So they've got to fix that too. Just my luck, isn't it?
Thanks.

There are several ways to get data off an old drive, some of which have already been mentioned:
USB drive adapter cable (best choice if you only need to do this rarely, too fragile for frequent use)
External enclosure (choose the 0GB empty case)
Drive dock (I keep one of these around to read old drives that are in the closet, so I no longer need the other accessories. Super handy accessory, much more reliable than the USB adapter cable.)
There are also write-protected forensic drive docks intended to examine and rescue data from drives without altering the contents, but that's probably more than what you need. They're mostly for data recovery shops.

Is there a way to get data to and from the hard drive of a Powerbook 180 without having to use the floppy drive?

Howdy folks!
I have an 20 year old Powerbook 180 with what I think is an unreliable floppy drive. Sometimes while accessing a diskette the screen flickers and usually power to the whole computer drops out.
I'm not familiar with Mac connectivity. Is there a way to access the hard drive--to get data off of, and install files, etc onto, the hard drive? 3.5 inch drives are 20th century.
But... I am happy because my old Powerbook still boots up just fine and I can look at my old files installed on the HD ok.
Thanks,
Hayward Matt

Hi Hayward,
This may be a power supply issue, not necessarily a problem with the floppy drive itself. Any change if you try removing the battery?
Would it be correct to assume that it is a plain PowerBook 180 (not 180c)? Which power adapter are you using? It must have a 7.5 DC output, but is it capable of supplying at least 2.0 A?
Unfortunately it is difficult to remove and connect the (2.5" SCSI) hard drive to a modern computer. Had it been 2.5" IDE, things would have been much easier.
It is possible to set up a serial null-modem connection from a PowerBook 180 to another computer. See the following discussion for details:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4974860
If the PB 180 has an internal modem (or an external modem connected to the modem port), you could send files to another modem-equipped computer over the phone lines. With the proper software installed, the PB 180 can even use a dial-up Internet connection.
Alternatively, another semi-old (pre-1998) Macintosh computer with built-in Ethernet could be used as an intermediary, You could use LocalTalk (or a plain Mac printer cable) for file sharing between the PB 180 and the semi-old Mac (the latter could then forward files over a local network or via the Internet). It is also possible to connect the PB 180 to the semi-old Mac in SCSI disk mode (see the user guide below for additional information).
manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/0302674APB160180UG.pdf
Jan

How to get data off a G4 mini with a failing hard drive.

For the record, here's how I ended up solving the problem - I had to invent this combination of approaches and it's not documented on any Web postings I could Google up during a week of working on this:
Situation: Your G4 mini's hard drive dies (unbootable), AppleJack was unable to fix it, and DiskWarrior 4 can't rebuild it and actually crashes before it reaches its Preview stage.
Why is this situation such a puzzle?
* When booted in single user mode, the Mini does not recognize an attached Mac in Target mode, so you can't copy your files to there.
* diskutil can't help you find any attached FW drives since diskutil is unavailable (because sh /etc/rc fails due to disk hardware errors). Even though mount is available, all possible guesses of the attached FW partition name fail ("disk2s2" through "disk7s4" all fail), despite previously confirming what the FW drive or target-mode Mac's partition name looks like to other working Macs.
* Attaching a USB hard drive fails because the USB drivers fail to load, again presumably due to disk hardware errors.
* Booting from OS 10.4 (Tiger) Install DVD doesn't help, because even when running Terminal from the Install DVD, an attached Target-mode Mac is not recognized (diskutil shows no attached devices), and since the 10.4 Install DVD does not include mount_fat32, it's also not possible to mount an attached USB drive.
* Solution! *
Use an OS 10.5 (Leopard) Install DVD to boot the G4 mini. Even though the DVD reports that the old mini is incompatible with Leopard, go ahead and accept that result, and then you can run 10.5 Terminal from the DVD on your G4 mini. Unlike 10.4 Install DVD, this one includes drivers to recognize and mount an attached USB drive, even FAT32 (Windows) formatted drives. So now, in Terminal, you can copy files from your dead hard drive to the USB drive. Whew!
Note: This solution is possible and probably generally useful to people since if you have a dead G4 mini on Tiger, you probably do what I do and go buy a replacement new Mini, which of course comes with a Leopard Install DVD. And generic USB drives are easy to borrow or cheap to buy or you already have one.
Message was edited by: alanngnet

P.s. Additional details that might be helpful to people:
- When you boot Leopard on your old Mini, click "Ok" when it tells you it's incompatible. Then Terminal will be a menu option under "Tools."
- You'll need to have familiarized yourself with basic Unix file commands (practice on another Mac first, for example). If your hard drive is dying, time is of the essence, so learn your commands before you start up your dead Mini.
- Tip for Unix newbies: The crucial commands you'll need are ls and cp. http://www.ss64.com/osx/ is a handy reference manual.
- Hopefully when you run "ls /Volumes" you'll see your mini's dead hard drive listed there as "Macintosh HD" (or whatever you may have previously renamed it). If it's not listed there, you're really hosed. But try again later, maybe when it's as cool (temperature) as possible.
- The destination path for your USB drive is also viewable with "ls /Volumes", e.g. in my case it turned out to be "/Volumes/Elements" (where Elements was the brand name of the drive).
- Don't use dd or ditto en masse because the hardware errors on your drive will screw things up. Instead selectively pick out the files you really need to recover and cp them. Be sure to use -p option to preserve file date/time. I used a lot of "cp -Rpv oldminifolder /Volumes/MyUSBDrive" to copy all contents and subfolders from folder "oldminifolder" to my USB drive. It will also be helpful to use "ls -trl" to see the chronologically most-recently-modified files on your old mini so you pick out which files to copy (e.g., files newer than your most recent backup).
Hope this helps, and thanks to the many other posters out there on the Web who taught me many Unix tricks this week.

How can I get my data off my MacBook Pro hard drive?

So initially, water was spilled on my MacBook Pro keyboard. I promptly shut it down, turned it upside down, mopped up the water and let it dry out for a day near a heater. The next day it worked fine and continued to do so for about 2 more days until it decided it would no longer start up. Right now it can't make it to the login screen at start up, it just shuts down, the same thing happens in safe mode as well. So, since I haven't backed up my data recently, I was wondering if there was a way I could rescue my data from the hard drive. I did take it in to the Genius Bar, but they couldn't help me since it wouldn't start up in safe mode. Is there a way around this like hooking up an alternate monitor or am I just screwed?

Here is a Video to remove drive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HS6ELFwD3A
Here is a video to install drive you took out to a new enclosure - to make your files accesible to other Macs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLNv8RMzfjo
Once you do look for home folder and copy everything to the other mac or another external drive.

How do I get data from a pc external hard drive to my mac

I am about to purchase an Air. I have an external hard drive I have used for years with my PC. It has countless pictures and music. How can I get that data from my PC external drive to my new Air and also to the Time Machine?

Thank you for your reply. It is a Western Digital external USB 3.0 formatted for PC. It includes pics, videos, music, documents, power point, etc. would it still just be a drag and drop?
Thanks!

How to Restore Data Deleted from Time Capsule Hard Drive

This question is more about the time capsule in general as opposed to a specific time machine issue.
I'm using my time capsule as an external hard drive that I can access wirelessly and I have accidentally deleted a folder. It didn't go into the trash can on the computer I used to delete the file from my TC, it just disappeared. I have data recovery software (Data Rescue III) but it is unable to locate the TC since it is not a plugged in device. I've tried connecting my computer to the TC via wireless, ethernet, and usb but Data Rescue still won't detect the TC.
How can I get the files back? Is there a way to restore files deleted from the TC when it's being used as a hard drive (not as a time machine for backups)?
THANKS!!!
Message was edited by: jenniex
Message was edited by: jenniex

There is only one USB port on the back of the Time Capsule, and AFAICT from reading Apple's documentation, the only uses for that port are to connect an external hard drive or printer. You could try connecting that port to your Mac directly via USB cable, but nothing I can find indicates it would work, and you would be solely responsible if it somehow damaged either device (which may or may not even be a possible side effect).
Unfortunately, if connecting the Mac to the Time Capsule via USB does not work, you're probably out of luck. Unless you are willing to crack open the Time Capsule, remove the hard drive and put it in an external enclosure so you can access it with Data Rescue, your data will remain lost. Note for the future that you absolutely *should not ever* keep original, un-backed-up data on a backup drive. It's poor organization and dangerous to boot.

Help Transferring data off of old iMac hard drive onto new Imac

Hello, I have two iMac's in my home office. My 6 year old iMac recently had the logic board die; so as opposed to putting $500 dollars into an old iMac I just removed the hard drive. I now would like to pull all the data off this hard drive and upload it to my other iMac. What type of cable/program do I need to do this?
Thanks for any insight!

One option would be a hard drive enclosure case. It would also allow you to continue to use the old drive for backups etc. One example of such a case which includes a usb cable to connect to the new computer: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=0VN-0003-000H1
The same source has a number of others: http://www.newegg.com/Hard-Drive-Enclosures/SubCategory/ID-92
After the old drive is in the enclosure and connected, you can simply move files from the old drive or you could use OS X: How to migrate data from another Mac using Mavericks

Hard Drive Failed - How to get Blog/iWeb back to new hard drive?

Our hard drive failed and none of the data is recoverable. I have a new hard drive and want to do a new post on our blog, but am worried it will delete our old blog (hence all our pix etc too) if I publish from this empty new blog. How do I get the old blog back on our computer from the iDisk I guess? Any help would be great cuz I have no clue what I'm doing!
Same problem with our gallery and iPhoto. How to get those pix back in iPhoto apart from downloading them from the site?

For future reference:
_iWeb ’08: Backing up your Domain file_
_Backing up your iPhoto library_
How to back up MobileMe data
Paragraph 2.3 of this FAQ page gives some tips on how to use published files, graphics, photos, etc., to help rebuild your iWeb site from scratch:
http://iwebfaq.org/site/iWebBackupretrieve.html

How to download data from a an external hard drive ?j

How to download data from an external hd ?

You need to copy the data onto your computer and transfer it via that (either via iTunes, or if the app that you want to transfer the data to supports, via wifi). Like the previous reply said, you can't do it directly without a computer being involved.

How to get rid of stuff from the hard drive

Our family iMac, with a 500GB hard drive, has only 5 GB of space left. Is there a quick, efficient way to get rid of duplicate stuff, large files, unused programs that just take up space?

take a look @ [WhatSize|http://www.id-design.com/software/whatsize>.
also, here's some reads to peruse:
Your Mac needs adequate hard drive space to operate normally. How full can a drive be before it's too full? There is no hard and fast rule that says “X” amount or “%” of free drive space is needed. A low amount of RAM requires more drive space for Virtual Memory’s swap files.
Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space are discussed in this link
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/lackofram.html
Here’s some general guidelines for minimum hard drive free space:
1. As a general rule, your available space should be 5GB as an absolute minimum as it generally requires that much free space to perform an Archive and Install of Mac OS X and still preserve some free space for VM swap files.
2. Some say that your hard drive should have at least 5% of it's capacity available for use. Still others say 10% to 15%. If you routinely process complex graphics and videos, even more space is required.
Look at these links about freeing up more space.
Where did my disk space go?
_*http://www.macfixitforums.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Forum38&Number=770243*_
Download & use WhatSize described in this link or Disk Inventory X @ _*http://www.derlien.com/*_
Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk
_*http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html*_
Amazing Disappearing Drive Space
_*http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/TigerMisc.html*_
Increase HD Free Space
_*http://macosx.com/forums/howto-faqs/275191-how-easily-increase-hd-free-space-lap top.html*_
How to free up my disk space
http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html
JGG

Hard drive space?? (how to get more our of a 40g hard drive)

I got this Ibook G4 a year ago and it came with 40 g whcih at this point are almost completely used up.
My question is
how do i free up space?
Orriginally my computer, out of the box, with all the software on installed used almost 17 gigs. I called the apple an they said there are things on Mac Osx that you can delete which will free up a lot of space. Unfortunatelly i cant find these things any more.
Does OSX have a program that, like windows, shows you whcih files are taking up huge amounts of space and how often they are used??
Any help would be amazing.
Thanks
Aaron
Also, does updating my OSX on the internet every time take up large amounts of space??

Hi Aaron and welcome to Apple Discussions.
Does OSX have a program that, like windows, shows you whcih files are taking up huge amounts of space and how often they are used??
Yes, Finder will do almost all of that. Open a Finder window, hit ⌘+2 followed by ⌘+J. Tick the box against 'Calculate all sizes'. It will take a while to calculate. Click on the disclosure triangles next to folders to see their contents. What Finder won't do is tell you when you last used a Application. But hey, you know whether you've used/ want to use an App don't you?
My question is
how do i free up space?
There are a lot of things that you can do to free up disk space depending on what applications you use/might want to use.
For example, on my iBook, I have removed GarageBand from Applications and its Loops from HD/Library/Application Support. As my iBook only has a combo drive and I'm not into video editing anyway I have trashed iDVD & iMovie. (Not DVD player). I have also trashed preloaded games and World Book, and its associated files.
Language support files can be removed using Monolingual. Do not remove any English language files, though, or language files that you may want to use. I quit all other applications before running it.
OS X comes with a vast library of printer drivers, the large proportion of which will never be used by the average user.
Printer drivers are in the HD/Library/Printers folder. You can safely delete any named drivers that you don't have a printer for. For example, if you have a Canon, you can remove Epson, Lexmark, Hewlett Packard & Brother drivers. Epson alone takes up close to 1gb. You can even remove specific drivers from within the manufacturer's folder. For example, if you have an Epson C86 you can safely trash any other specific drivers in the Epson folder like C46, C66 etc. If, at a later date, you buy a printer whose driver you removed they can be added from your install disk, the disk that comes with the printer or downloaded.
A word of warning: More cautious heads than mine advise against messing in the HD/Library, but if you stick to the examples above, i.e. GarageBand loops, World Book and printer drivers you will be OK.
Certainly, I have had no problems with my system after removing those examples.
Check, too, in your music folder. It is possible that you have, say, 'xyz song' in the first level of your Music folder and the same song in Music/iTunes/iTunes Library. If you are sure that you do have 'xyz song' in iTunes, it is safe to delete from 'Music'. (This would only apply if you have 'Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to Library' selected in iTunes preferences, Advanced tab).
Also, with iTunes open, select Edit in the menu bar, then 'Show duplicate songs'. You can trash duplicates if you are sure that they are true duplicates, i.e. exact name, artist and file size.
Follow the uninstall instructions that came with any trial Applications that came pre-installed like MS Office.
Some excellent advice has been posted by ~JB~, with corresponding words of caution.
Dr Smoke has some advice here too.
Last but by no means least, when you have finished dumping your unwanted stuff in the trash, don't forget to empty it. You haven't regained the space until you do
And definitely last this time: If in any doubt about deleting anything, Ask!
Have fun!
Adrian

Need to figure out how to get windows on a brand new hard drive

So my hard drive for my Toshiba Satellite L505-s59903 ended up fully crashing past the point of every being used again. So i replaced the hard drive, only problem is i never made back up disks for my os. I was wondering is there a way for me to get ahold of the windows 7 recovory disks for my laptop. Right now since i don't have a os for the laptop i have a version of linux running, but i wanted to get back to windows, any help would be great.
also to add i do have a copy of windows XP, but i didn't want to have to use it if i could get the recovery disks instead.
If OS recovery isn't availble is there a way to make a driver disk so i can install the new version of windows?

If you don't care about having an exact restore w/ the recovery partition, or Office 2007 or other software that it shipped with:
download the Win7 iso w/ Service Pack 1 from Digital River (Google for links)
burn it to disk
then go to the Downloads section for your model & d/l all the Toshiba stuff (except Intel storage driver if you still have a HD that uses 512K sectors.   Not an "advanced format" drive. You need the Intel driver for advanced format. It translates the larger sector size of the drive to smaller ones for the older PCs, or something like that. It slows the system down, too.)
go to Toshiba support, downloads; find L505D-S6947, and get the Windows 7 Upgrade instructions for that model to use as a guide to install theToshiba stuff
install your "generic" Windows 7 on the Toshiba
install your Toshiba model's stuff
use to COA number on sticker on the bottom to activate (If you don't have that, buy recovery disks for $30 shipped will be your solution.   You can run the d/l Windows 7 unactivated for 30 days but it will nag you all the time that it needs to be activated and isn't a genuine Windows. And I think that it also takes some mysterious pauses every now and then, just to irritate those who are using it free.)
burn a disk image / backup of it as soon as you have it tweaked and updated and running just right
That should work.   I think I listed all the steps.
You can d/l Office 2010 but I don't think you can get 2007.   If you don't have disks for that, or Quickbooks, and need it, Recovery disks are the cheap answer.
The shipper for the Toshiba recovery disks is pretty fast. I just bought disks for the secondhand L505-ES5034 i3 that I bought with a trashed hard drive and no recovery partition or disks.   I put the Win8 preview on it and then the add-on start button, and I'm liking that pretty much. Excect I can't load any Toshiba software and thus I have no battery life indicator anymore and I have been shut down several times now, haha.

How to get data off Quadra 650's hard drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for