Performa 6400/180

gm7cadd9

Hello everybody, I have a question about this ancient machine. I am a tech for a recording studio so I know a thing or two about macs, but being young and such I know from the VERY end of OS 9 up through Tiger.



A friend brought in this computer that apparently just stopped working, he has been using it everyday for years for internet etc...amazing, I didn't think the internet would run on 180Mhz and 16 megs of RAM.



Anyhow, he brought it in for me to "fix" but he has a newer G4 and just wants the data off of the old hard drive. I have no means to hook this up to a monitor first of all (sucks I know) and I am trying to figure out a way to get this hard drive info!



SO, my first thought, it is an IDE drive so if I pull it out and put it in one of our spare computers I should be able to copy all the info. However I am not certain that OS X can read the formatting of a disk that is pre OS 9 and I certainly do not want OS X to initialize the disk. So because I am unsure of this issue I am not about to dive in and pry out this hard drive which is near impossible to get to!



Another option, this computer does have SCSI, is there a way to hook computer to computer using a SCSI cable and transfer all the info?



ANY help would be much appreciated. I know it sounds like more trouble than it's worth seeing as the value of this computer is around $20, but apparently the data on the drive is very important, and it's my boss's boss's computer.



Thanks in advance!



-Roy

reg

You can try the simply fix first and maybe only spend a couple of bucks. If the internal battery dies those machines sometimes they would not start up. Replace the battery and see if that solves your problem. As for data transfer it depends what app it is from. Some apps don't have any current versions and there is no way to get the data to open on a new machine. In those cases we opened and printed everything and then manually entered it into newer programs.



reg

lundy

If he doesn't want the computer, just the data, then it seems to me a no-brainer just to take it apart and put the IDE drive in another computer. The Performa 6400 was released in 1996 and almost surely uses HFS+ file system, which would mount on any modern Mac.



Also, for $15 you can get a DB-15 to VGA connector which presumably would let you hook it up to any VGA monitor at 640x480.



Here is the MacTracker info on this computer for what it's worth:



http://homepage.mac.com/johnnylundy/..._6410_6420.pdf

gm7cadd9

thanks guys for your help I dove into the beast (which was amazingly impossible to open up) and pulled the hard drive. I tried to mount it on my dual 450 running 10.3.9 and it said the volume could not be read (ignore eject or initialize)



I ran disk warrior but it said that the disk could not be mounted or repaired because it is not a valid mac volume. Any suggestions? Is there an emulator or something reminiscent of a classic mode that will read this directory?





thanks again!



-Roy

kingofsomewherehot

Find a local computer repair guy that deals with Macs.



If he's been in the business any length of time he's probably got a similiar (but working) machine around. He'll be able to mount it and burn the files to CD or DVD for you.



It's his business, so expect to pay him, but if you need the files....

lundy

Quote:

Originally posted by Gm7Cadd9

thanks guys for your help I dove into the beast (which was amazingly impossible to open up) and pulled the hard drive. I tried to mount it on my dual 450 running 10.3.9 and it said the volume could not be read (ignore eject or initialize)



I ran disk warrior but it said that the disk could not be mounted or repaired because it is not a valid mac volume. Any suggestions? Is there an emulator or something reminiscent of a classic mode that will read this directory?





thanks again!



-Roy

OK I just checked and HFS+ was introduced with Mac OS 8.1, which was in 1998. So I suppose it is possible that the format is plain HFS. Is there an option in Disk Warrior to read plain HFS volumes? Otherwise this is very strange if indeed there is data on the disk. The only other thing I can think of is ... is IDE the same as ATA? In other words is a parallel ATA modern Mac hardware compatible with an IDE drive from 1996? I don't know enough about that issue to speculate.

lundy

Couple more things:



Did the Mac OS X system or Console logs reveal anything?



Also, it may need to be on its own ATA bus. Try every combination of jumpers and settings.

vox barbara

Quote:

Originally posted by Gm7Cadd9

...



Anyhow, he brought it in for me to "fix" but he has a newer G4 and just wants the data off of the old hard drive. I have no means to hook this up to a monitor first of all (sucks I know) and I am trying to figure out a way to get this hard drive info!

...

Thanks in advance!



-Roy

First shot, check the internal battery as someone else mentioned.

If this operation doesn't fix the comp. than get yourself an ATA<->Firewire

harddisk case, put the HD into the case, connect it with your Mac next door,

copy the data you need, done. Tell your boss you don't take traveller checks.



cheers

gm7cadd9

Great minds think alike....however to no avail. I tried that and the drive is not at all recognized. From what I am told it needs to be mounted on system 7.5, I could probably purchase a computer with system 7 on it cheaper than it would cost to fix it the hard way... I don't think my boss understand that even if I get the info off from it, non of the apps will read those old files.





-Roy

vox barbara

Quote:

Originally posted by Gm7Cadd9

Great minds think alike....however to no avail. I tried that and the drive is not at all recognized. From what I am told it needs to be mounted on system 7.5, ...

Hm, strange things happen. Once i've run into the same

trouble, and got myself the hd ata-firewire enclosure.

It worked like a charm from minute one. (pure hfs, i should

mention.) Perhaps i am actually not aware that Tiger isn't able

to read pure hfs, but i can not stretch this out of my imagination.



best

reg

LowEndMac has a download page of most of the old mac systems and 7.5 is a free download. You could also try and run SoftMac . This is an emulator that you load on a PC to run system 7. You still have the problem of which apps he was using. One of the good things about apps back then was that they were not as large and bloated as current programs. If you are lucky someone still might have what you need.



reg

drboar

The old IDE drive should mount on any new macintosh. Regardless of HFS or HFS+. Have you the jumper on th disk set correctly? Modern computers run on cable select while the old ones used Master and Slave setting (as set by the disks not by the computer and the positions on the IDE chain)

vox barbara

Quote:

Originally posted by DrBoar

The old IDE drive should mount on any new macintosh. Regardless of HFS or HFS+. ...

Great minds think alike...