Connecting Classic Internal Drive to Modern iMac?

1) If it's not been plugged on, no.

2) I have not tried that, but I see no reason for it not working; there is a good chance.

A SCSI-to-USB adapter (such as this one) is expensive. Additionally, its HD-50 connector is designed to connect to the type of port typically found on an external SCSI enclosure, and isn't intended for direct connection to a 50-pin hard drive. The interfaces aren't a match. Instead of your friend investing the $$ in an adapter and enclosure, why not check a thrift store for an older Power Mac that used SCSI hard drives, such as the 7200, 7300, 7500, 7600, 8500, 8600, 9600, etc. Install the Classic's hard drive in the Power Mac as a second device on the bus/ribbon cable, by setting its SCSI ID jumper to 1. Unfortunately, the connection of a VGA display to an older Power Mac's DB-15 monitor port would require an adapter.

I'm looking at doing the same thing, connecting my old Mac Classic HDD to my new iMac to retrieve some files. I can source one of these at a good price http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/support/scsiport/usbscsi/USB2Xchange , but Jeff your post suggests that this might not work. Also I note that this adapter doesn't mention Mac compatibility... should I just forget about it?

That Adaptec adapter is similar to the one that I linked in my previous post, in that it's designed to connect to an external SCSI peripheral having an HD-50 (High-Density 50) connection. Unfortunately, 50-pin SCSI-I/II hard drives have a male IDC-50 connection. Using an additional adapter like this one and a 50-conductor SCSI ribbon cable, you could use the Adaptec adapter to connect the drive to a USB port. The conversion to USB only provides a data path, it doesn't provide the necessary 12 volts & 5 volts that power the hard drive via its molex power connection. This is why the drive really needs to be installed in an external (powered) enclosure. Of equal importance, is the need for a driver, so that the adapter is recognized by the system. If the manufacturer doesn't specify Mac compatibility, they won't have a Mac driver. The product info for the adapter that I linked indicates that a Mac SCSI configuration utility (OS 10.2.7 ->) is included on CD. Even with this adapter, the hard drive needs to be installed in an external, powered enclosure having an HD-50 SCSI connection or one adapted to an HD-50 connection.

If you have a Mac with PCI slots, consider installing a simple PCI-slot SCSI card. Some of these come with a 50-pin ribbon cable connecter, usually internal. If you have a Mac with space inside and a spare Molex power connector inside, you could do it all "on the cheap".

The ATTO Express PCI PSC or equivalent Apple 53C875 both have a 50-pin ribbon cable connector inside, as does the Adaptec 2930. Both are available on the used market at low cost, and are supported in OS 9 and Mac OS X.

I have one of those (USB2Xchange) somewhere. It works under Mac OS 9. Unfortunately, Adaptec never created Mac OS X drivers (that I know of), so it will not work under Mac OS X. If you have a Mac with USB that can boot Mac OS 9 directly, and you have an external SCSI drive case were you can mount that SCSI drive from the old Mac, it would probably work.

What about connecting a Mac Classic and a new iMac using a appletalk/localtalk adapter, like this one - http://www.price.com/mac/networking/media_converters/macsense/fastnet.html - would this work??

That adapter appears to be similar to the PhoneNET variant, which was used to connect Macintosh computers to a AppleTalk-based PhoneNET-style network (instead of original LocalTalk cabling from Apple). The round plug was connected to the (serial) Printer Port of each Mac. The RJ-11 outlets were used to link the computers via (RJ-11) phone cables (in a chain). LocalTalk-capable printers could also be attached to the network.

With the PhoneNET system, the outer two wires (yellow and black) in the RJ-11 cables were used for this. At each end of the chain, an RJ-11 terminator plug (with a 120 ohm resistor) was inserted.

Unfortunately, Macintosh computers introduced from 1998 do not have the round serial port, and thus no built-in LocalTalk. Ethernet has been used since then.

It is per se possible to connect a USB-to-serial adapter to a modern Mac. One could then (via a correct cable combination) set up a link to one of the serial ports of a (working) Macintosh Classic. However, this link would require terminal emulation software with file-transfer capabilities ("real" AppleTalk file sharing is not possible).

Jan

Message was edited by: Jan Hedlund

I was wondering if I could use this type of adapter and plug the serial end into my Mac Classic's printer port, then plug an ethernet cable into the other end and attach it to my iMac. But are you saying that Appletalk won't work between the two computers using this configuration? Thanks for your expertise on this one!

Hi,

Not only will AppleTalk not work. The hardware is not compatible. RJ-11 is the small type of connector used for phone cables. Ethernet uses completely different cables and plugs (normally, RJ-45).

For Ethernet you could look for an old SCSI-to-Ethernet adapter (perhaps something like the Pocket SCSI/Link from Dayna). However, modern Macs require file sharing over TCP/IP (not AppleTalk). This will complicate matters further.

Do you wish to share files on a regular basis, or do you need to transfer files occasionally only?

Jan

Addendum

Reading through your first post above, where you mentioned that you want to retrieve some files, I realise that regular networking probably is not needed.

Do you have access to a modem for the Macintosh Classic? If so, you could use a terminal emulation program (for instance, the communications section of ClarisWorks) to establish a modem-to-modem link with another computer over the phone lines. Alternatively, you could try a local connection (something like the method in KB article # 22229).

You could even use a PC (with a DB-9M serial port) as an intermediary. A normal Mac modem cable MiniDIN-8M to DB-25M can be combined with a standard PC null-modem cable DB-25F to DB-9F. This will make a direct link between the Modem Port of a Mac and the PC serial port possible. Terminal emulation software is used on both sides (e.g., HyperTerminal in Windows on the PC). The resource fork of a Mac file cannot (without special software) be handled correctly by a Windows machine. This is of major importance for Mac application files; these files must be protected (encoded or at least compressed) before being sent via a PC. Data files (such as word processing documents), however, can often be used anyway.

Jan

connecting my old Mac Classic HDD to my new iMac to retrieve some files.

If that Mac Classic has a working high density floppy drive, and all you want is to retrieve some files that are each relatively small, a simple solution may be to get a USB floppy drive (pretty cheap).

Format the HD floppy disk(s) for Mac OS (HFS) on the Mac Classic. Copy the files to the disk. Connect the USB floppy drive to the Mac. Insert the floppy disk. Mac OS X should be able to access the disk.

Note: You must use HD floppy disks. 800k floppy disks will be unreadable on the USB floppy drive.