G3 Blue and White Hard Drive

May 3, 2005 9:32 PM

I've got a hard drive out of my old G3 Blue and white that, for unrelated reasons, ain't workin right now. I've also got a G4 Ibook, and recently I've determined that I need some files from that hard drive. Is there any sort of adapter kit or cable set or something that would let me hook up the old G3 drive to my Ibook and access the files stored on it?
posted by TeamBilly to computers & internet (6 comments total)

You can get a firewire enclosure for it. Try OWC for info.
posted by spilon at 9:44 PM on May 3, 2005

Cheaper than an external drive enclosure is an IDE-to-USB2.0 adaptor. It's the same thing electronically as a USB2.0 external drive enclosure, but cheaper because there are fewer parts. Assuming your drive is IDE that is.
posted by -harlequin- at 9:54 PM on May 3, 2005

The only question is what you mean by not working. If you mean "no power, no startup chime, nothing", then a firewire or USB 2.0 enclosure is what you need (Dealmac's storage section should help you find a good deal on one). If you mean "won't boot because of some OS or software problem", then you can still run the G3 in Firewire Target Disk mode, where it basically acts like an external firewire drive, by holding down the 'T' key while you power it on and then connecting the two computers with a firewire cable.
posted by boaz at 10:17 PM on May 3, 2005

If you don't know for a fact that your iBook has USB 2.0 ports, double check (I would expect the System Profiler utility to explicitly state that*) before making your decision--trying to do multi-gig file transfers over a USB1 connection would be miserably slow!

*: It looks like the System Profiler at least in Tiger differentiates by using the terms "USB Bus" and "USB High-Speed Bus."

Also, sometimes dealmac.com has listings for fairly inexpensive enclosures. I don't know which brands, or in the case of FireWire, which chipsets you'd need to avoid or look for.
posted by kimota at 10:20 PM on May 3, 2005

boaz - I don't think that the G3 will work in either direction with target disk mode ( or by holding down option to select a boot drive - target disk mode, startup disk selector, and the ability to boot off of firewire/usb were introduced with the AGP G4 desktop). I had to maintain a lab full of these, and this was a real annoyance.
posted by sluggo at 6:43 PM on May 4, 2005

You're absolutely correct; I had forgotten about that. In that case, I'll just join the chorus recommending an external enclosure. And when you're done, throw out that 6 GB drive, buy an 80GB or so drive to throw in the enclosure and start backing up regularly.
posted by boaz at 7:47 PM on May 4, 2005