honey-squirrel

Q: Transfer files on power mac 9500 to macbook pro laptop

I have an old Power Mac 9500 (my first computer!), and am trying to figure out how to transfer all the old files (esp photos) to either email, the cloud, or my MacBook Pro. Any suggestions? I'm willing to buy a relatively cheap cable/adapter if necessary.

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Posted on Dec 1, 2013 12:29 PM

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Q: Transfer files on power mac 9500 to macbook pro laptop

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  • by Jan Hedlund,

    Jan Hedlund Jan Hedlund Dec 1, 2013 1:36 PM in response to honey-squirrel
    Level 6 (9,889 points)
    Dec 1, 2013 1:36 PM in response to honey-squirrel

    A Power Macintosh 9500 has built-in Ethernet. It would not be difficult to connect the computer to one of the LAN ports of a router, and thus be able to gain access to the Internet. A suitable web browser, an email program or an FTP client would be needed (if not already installed, programs can be transferred to the 9500 via CD or floppy).

     

    Jan

  • by honey-squirrel,

    honey-squirrel honey-squirrel Dec 29, 2013 12:33 PM in response to honey-squirrel
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 29, 2013 12:33 PM in response to honey-squirrel

    Sorry, I actually have a Performa 5300CD (it has a CD-rom drive but cannot write to cd). Although it does have ethernet, connecting it via ethernet to my MacBook Pro did nothing. I even tried to use Migration Assistant to no avail. Also have not been able to connect the Performa to the web. I have floppies but it would take about 15 to transfer all the files I want to.

  • by Jan Hedlund,Helpful

    Jan Hedlund Jan Hedlund Dec 29, 2013 2:43 PM in response to honey-squirrel
    Level 6 (9,889 points)
    Dec 29, 2013 2:43 PM in response to honey-squirrel

    Hi,

     

    No problem.

     

    According to the specifications (below), the Performa 5300 CD had System 7.5.1 from the beginning. Has this been updated (check the exact system version under 'About This...' in the Apple menu)?

     

    http://support.apple.com/kb/TA34791

     

    Ideally, the computer should have at least System 7.5.3 in order to make it easier to use TCP/IP for file transfers over Ethernet.

     

    Since the Performa 5300CD has an IDE/ATA hard drive, another possibility could be to remove the hard drive, and then use something like the following adapter.

     

    http://www.newertech.com/products/usb3_universaldriveadap.php

     

    The now external USB hard drive can be connected to a more modern Mac. This way you should be able to read the disk and transfer files.

     

    Jan

  • by Appaloosa mac man,Helpful

    Appaloosa mac man Appaloosa mac man Dec 30, 2013 9:33 PM in response to honey-squirrel
    Level 5 (4,330 points)
    Dec 30, 2013 9:33 PM in response to honey-squirrel

    Keep in mind that the files will have to be saved in a format that can be read by current software.  You need to go to "Save As" and choose an appropriate file format.  As Jan indicated, the 5300 used an IDE drive and not a SCSI drive.  You could remove the drive and try mounting the drive in a newer machine.  A G3 or G4 might work well as a 'bridge' machine to get to USB devices.  Zip Drives can be found in SCSI and USB.

     

    Hardware options will get the files to a new destination but the destination machine still has to make sense of the data.  RTF and SYLK formats have spanned several decades.

  • by honey-squirrel,

    honey-squirrel honey-squirrel Dec 31, 2013 11:34 AM in response to honey-squirrel
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 31, 2013 11:34 AM in response to honey-squirrel

    Thanks for the suggestions. The computer had OS9. I saved all the files I wanted on 3.5" floppy disks in either rtf, pdf, or jpeg formats. Then I ordered this: http://goo.gl/lexlyT from Amazon for under $12, which should be able to read and copy the floppy files to my MacBook.