Back in time on my HD

August 9, 2007 2:15 PM

Recovering data (photos) off of a Powerbook HD withOUT putting the HD in an external case. Possible?

Powerbook G4 Wallstreet (Dual boot OS9&X)

It works fine to get online and such, but a long time ago it outlived its usefulness for my design needs. In its day (2000-2003ish) I used to do a lot of my photo editing on it. I have since moved on to newer machines.

I’d like to see if I could recover anything photo-wise off its 8gb internal HD. I have had great success recovering photo data from old external drives/media, but am wondering if there is any software/shareware/freeware for recovering data off the current primary disk.

Im sure I could purchase an external case for the HD and run it through the wringer, but since this is more of a curiosity than a need, I’d like to avoid that.

There is no data that I really care about on the HD that I can see, so I don’t care if there is any data loss in the process.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

posted by sandra_s to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Best answer: Firewire Target Disk Mode is your friend! All you need is a firewire cable, and your PowerBook becomes an enclosure and you can recover to your heart's content from another machine.
posted by AaRdVarK at 2:47 PM on August 9, 2007

Have you tried booting it in target disk mode? Essentially, you unplug everything but the power and a keyboard, connect it via firewire to another computer, and then as it's booting up, hold the "T" key; The computer acts like an external hard drive and you can copy things off it. That's how I moved things from my old Mac Mini.

I don't know if the dual booting will have an impact on it, or what version of OSX is there. Apple says: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583

You could also just set up file sharing in the system preferences, and connect to it from another computer over the network.
posted by Galt at 2:47 PM on August 9, 2007

There's no such thing as a G4 Wallstreet afaict, however, you should be able to boot into FireWire Target Disk Mode by holding down T as you turn it on. I can't find any info on exactly how to do it, and what to expect as it starts for a Mac that old though.

You'll need a FireWire cable with the right ports on each end (male to male?) and to plug it into another FireWire capable Mac. If it boots up and the HD still works ok then you should be able to access everything on the drive without any trouble.
posted by public at 2:52 PM on August 9, 2007

That'll teach me not to hit preview before I answer
posted by public at 2:53 PM on August 9, 2007

Response by poster: Sorry, meant G3
posted by sandra_s at 2:53 PM on August 9, 2007

Response by poster: OMG!!!!! You guys ROCK!!!!!! You have all been heroes to this damsel in distress :-* I'm giving best answer to AardVarK only cuz he was first.
posted by sandra_s at 2:56 PM on August 9, 2007