Do I need a crossover cable??

I'm trying to import Outlook/Entourage emails from an old imac, circa 2000 running OS 9.2 to a new Macbook running OS 10.5. The Macbook does not have a firewire port so I figured I'd have to connect the two machines with ethernet. However, when I connected the two machines with a patch cable and tried to import the emails using both Migration Assistant and "Import", the Macbook reported that it couldn't find the old computer.

I thought that crossover cables were no longer necessary for mac to mac connections, but maybe that's only if both machines are newer models??

If I do need a crossover cable, how do I identify that? I've got several ethernet cables but as far as I can tell, they are not crossover cables.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Marion

Powerbook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on May 25, 2009 1:19 PM

17 replies

R C-R

Level 6

17,794 points

May 28, 2009 2:19 AM in response to mhc_99

Glad I could help. What was really amazing about that was the timing. Not three hours before I read your post I had finally started a project I had put off for years: getting some old Macs, Mac parts, & software I had accumulated ready for donation or recycling. As part of that, I set up an old SuperMac S900 clone as a testbed & wanted to add it temporarily to my home network.

So while I was writing the post on my iMac, the SuperMac keyboard & monitor were two feet away on my desk & I could go back & forth to check what worked & what didn't. Since the SuperMac is glacially slow compared to modern Macs, I had plenty of time to compose the post ... & to contemplate how far the Mac OS & the hardware it runs on has evolved since that old clone was my main Mac! 🙂

mhc_99 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 1, 2009 6:59 PM in response to mhc_99

Just thought I'd report back on the results of my Outlook/Entourage mail import.

When I went to my friends' place on Friday, I decided to try the path of least resistance first so I opened Entourage on the OS9 machine and drag/copied the mailboxes I wanted over to the external USB drive.

I had dowlnloaded the app, Emix to Mbox converter and tested the process at home and it converted the trial mailbox just fine and the mailbox imported into Mail as expected. However, when I tried to convert the mailboxes at my friends'place, I got an error message when I tried to import them into Mail saying that no valid mailboxes were found.

So, I did a workaround and imported the mailboxes on the external drive into Entourage on the new Macbook, and then imported them into Mail from Entourage. Kind of a long way to go about it, but it worked. Yay!

Many thanks to everyone for their help, and to RC-R, I've printed out your instructions on file sharing cause I know they will come in handy when I work on my Dad's machine.

Marion

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Do I need a crossover cable??