Getting files off Mac Clone, difficulty: no keyboard, mouse, monitor

January 24, 2018 8:23 AM

I have an PowerComputing PowerCenter 150, running some version of Mac OS 8. I don't have a mouse, keyboard, or monitor for the computer. I do have an ethernet cable, but not a crosslink cable. Is there a way to use my current MacBook Air (running the latest OS) to get the files off of the PowerCenter?

I assume I can try to find a shop to pull the SCSI drive and transfer it to USB, but I'd rather not do that if possible.

posted by griseus to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

To do this over a network without input and display devices connected to the PowerCenter 150, you'd need a Mac running OS X 10.5, as the compatible AFP protocols were removed as of 10.6. You'd also need for file sharing on the PowerCenter to have been turned on when it was last in use. With sharing previously turned on and a compatible Mac in the middle, you'd connect to the shared volume(s), copy everything onto the 10.5 Mac, and then connect to your MacBook Air from the 10.5 Mac and copy everything again.

If you had input and display devices for the PowerCenter, you could either turn file sharing on (and still need another Mac at or below 10.5) or you could set up an FTP server on another machine and upload everything that way. That assumes the PowerCenter had an FTP client like Fetch. Otherwise you'd also need to use whatever browser it had to try to download a compatible FTP client.

A SCSI-USB adapter is almost certainly your best bet.
posted by fedward at 8:48 AM on January 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

Given that you don't have any of the peripherals, that's pretty much what you have to do. SCSI/USB adapter and patience.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:51 AM on January 24, 2018

If your clone has a FireWire port and will boot into target disk mode, that might do it for you.

Oh, sorry, missed the MacBook Air part -- this sounds like a simple data recovery job at your local Mac repair shop. I suspect a SCSI enclosure might be either scarce or a little spendy or both.
posted by drfu at 1:49 PM on January 24, 2018

Yeah, there are SCSI-USB adapters, but there aren't many, they aren't cheap, and I wouldn't trust an adapter to do what you expect it to unless you've researched it.
posted by wotsac at 8:13 PM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]