powerbook g4, how do i get stuff off it

tombom112

hi there
i was asked to get some files off powerbook g4 for a friend, its running os9.2 so fairly old, the usb dont recongise external drives and i'm thinking it needs to go up to osx tiger or something to get it working resonablely well.

If i were on a pc i'd stick in a linux live cd and off i go, dose'nt seem to work, all my experience is with pc's (proper computers ) so my question are

Can i get a linux live disk to boot on start up so i can pull these files off

or option b is i'll take apart and plug the drive into my pc, from the googleing i've done its an ultra ide drive, i've a cable that'll do ide and sata to usb, hopin apple dont use scsi or something cause i dont have that kind of cable.

Any help would be great, i have no experience with apple computers
thanks tom

Cork24

first off Mac Runs on a FAT32 HDD,, SO what is your USB Stick On NTFS or FAT?

Secondly Getting a mac Running that OS trying to talk with a Linux Live CD is not going to happen your best bet is to Install Win XP on FAT32 and take the HDD out of the Mac and place it into the PC

the PC should pick it up.

No Apple doesnt use SCSI.. you can Find SCSI on the Power Tower running Xeon.

they now have their own FireWire that able to spend 10Gb per second.

tombom112

ok thanks for that, i pulled the hard disk and linux can see but when copying over files i'm gettin crap about permissions, windows 7 dos'nt see it but that probaly because its on an ntfs, like you said, would the handiest thing be to bring it to a friend with a new imac to copy the files? since mac's are alien to me will there be any problem with doing this, thanks for the reply by the way


my other flash drive was picked up by the g4 itself, format in fat32, but i could'nt copy and paste to it, i'd copy be paste would be ghosted out, is there somethong stupid i'm doing here

Cork24

Your getting the Permission Issuse as you are trying it on a Live CD which you can only Read and can not Write.

If you installed Linux as a Image OS, and run it with Vmware. you could then Connect the Hard Drive to it and it should then allow you to Copy all the Info over.

Cork24

if you have a flash drive plug it into your mac

go into Applications, Ulities, Disk Ulitiy And click on your hard drive go over to Format and Format it to FAT32(J)
its the one that starts with J cant think of it
it could be that you have Read Permission on the flash drive by do not have Write.

tombom112

i have ubuntu dual booting on my pc, so its not that its a live cd, i'll try the usb format on the g4, did it in windows but no go, if its done on a mac maybe it'll work, would it be easier to just plug the hard disk into another mac, i can give it to friend, i presume it will work then, thanks for help

SouperComputer

Do you have a firewire cable?
If so target firewire mode is your new friend. Hold down the T key while powering up and the HD in there becomes a portable firewire drive. You will see a firewire logo on the screen when successfull.

Other options (some already discussed).....
-Pull the HD and attach it to another computer. Its handy enough with a G4 powerbook.
-Use a Linux Live CD. Yellowdog is the most popular.
-Boot up on an external HD containing OS X.

I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to update the actual OS on there just to get data from it...

tombom112

hi there,

i pulled the hard drive and i connected it to my coputer with a ide to usb bridge, cant get the data to copy to my desktop, using ubuntu, win 7 dont see the drive.

have a ubuntu live cd but would'nt or i could'nt get to work, i'm used to going into the bios and then booting from cd, but good old mac's dont seem to work that way, how do you get a a mac to boot from cd, or can you?

dont have firewire cable and i have a 1T harddrive and when i went to format it said it was locked, (presume its the older os9, but i dont know when it comes to macs) so sticking os10 on harddrive i dont think will work with the equipment i have.

would the handiest thing be to get hold of another mac and use the ide to usb bridge and transfer the files to the other mac, do you think this would work as its a mac drive and mac machine, should be compatable?

ZENER

Can't you just format a memory stick with FAT32 and plug it in to the Mac ? I've recently done this and it does work ! OS 9 can read/write to USB sticks.

Second option is to download a Mac specific distro of Linux. As SouperComputer said above YellowDog is a good one. Boot from it and connect an external hard disk to move your files to.

Another option is to connect the Mac to your network and enable filesharing on the Mac and retrieve the files that way.

Another option is to download MacDrive 5 day trial, install it on your PC, connect the Mac hard disk via a USB bridge and get the files that way.

Personally I'd go with the networking option though.

Ken

To get a Mac to boot from a CD/DVD hold down the 'C' key after power on before the bong.

muggyog

Tombom112, you need to follow Zener's advice and forget booting the Mac from a Unix cd. The Mac you have uses a Motorola PowerPC chip so that won't work.
The advice to force boot from cd is for a Mac OS cd.

On the newer Intel based Macs you CAN boot from Unix cd.

tombom112

hello zener

yeah i format the usb in fat32 and could only read not write, with filesharing on the my network i could'nt get working (spent a while with that one)

didnt kown there was a mac/ linux distro, i must have a look at that, macdrive does seem to be working, so thanks alot for that.

Another question for ye mac people, someone asked me to put a new 1T internal drive in a new macbook, i presume this is the same as doing it on a pc, disk image,stick on new drive, or is there a "special mac way":)