Copy hard drive content from Performa 630 to new hard drive?

[Silly John Fatty]

Is there a way to do this? And if yes, what's the easiest/quickest/safest?

Thanks

 

[MacTech68]

Very easy.

Drag the icon of the OLD hard drive to the NEW hard drive.

When finished copying, you'll notice a "Desktop Folder" and possibly a "Trash" folder inside a folder of your OLD hard drive's name.

Open the "Desktop Folder" which should be in icon view, choose 'select all' from the Edit menu and then drag all the icons to your ACTUAL desktop area.

Then, similarly, drag the other items to the root level of the NEW hard drive.

The above is the only way to get items that are on the desktop transferred.

If there are NO items on the desktop on the OLD drive, you can simply drag all the root level items from one drive to the other. If you do, you'll miss any items in the trash or on the desktop.

EDIT: of course, with a Performa 630, the internal drive is IDE(PATA) and you cannot fit a slave drive to the internal IDE BUS. You'll need to use a two step operation, using a go-between SCSI hard drive or Zip drive and a floppy that is bootable on the Performa 630.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Thanks, although I'm a bit confused, my main issue is how I connect them. My new hard drive has USB 2 and FireWire 800. I don't know what connections the Performa has and I can't find them either in Mactracker. Is that what your last paragraph was about?

 

[bse5150]

I'm afraid you're SOL with that hard drive. The Performa 630 (or any 68k Mac for that matter) lacks both a USB and Firewire port. Your Mac has a SCSI port for connecting external hard drives.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Yes I'm aware of that, but is there no way to connect them?
What other solutions would there be? I was thinking of burning CDs. I don't know if it can do that, however. Chances are, it can't

 

[MacTech68]

Unfortunately, any modern solution that you can buy new in a shop will be too far ahead in terms of technology. It's like trying to fit a jet engine onto a WWI bi-plane.

You are going to need an old solution for an old computer. That means old/used equipment. The simplest MIGHT be a SCSI ZIP drive - NOTE that it MUST be a SCSI version.

However, before you go any further, I should ask what your reason is for getting the new hard drive?

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Hmm, an old solution for an old computer, so there's no way of copying to a new computer at all?
The reason is simple: I would probably get rid of the Performa, but there's still my stuff on it from a long long time ago. I want to save them somewhere at least.

Can I take the hard drive out of the computer and copy it to another somehow? With one of these "hard drive boxes". I mean hard drives haven't changed that much. Have they?

 

[MacTech68]

Hmm, an old solution for an old computer, so there's no way of copying to a new computer at all?
The reason is simple: I would probably get rid of the Performa, but there's still my stuff on it from a long long time ago. I want to save them somewhere at least.

Can I take the hard drive out of the computer and copy it to another somehow? With one of these "hard drive boxes". I mean hard drives haven't changed that much. Have they?

You can remove the hard drive and put it into an external case, however, yes, hard drives have changed too. The most common external case will have a SATA drive interface. This drive will require a PATA drive interface.

So, what you'd be looking for is:

3.5" USB2 External hard drive enclosure for PATA hard drive.

NOTE: PATA used to be referred to as 'ATA' or 'IDE' but is now more commonly referred to as PATA to distinguish it from SATA, the new interface.

The enclosure will require it's own power supply - this may be an internal power supply (with a mains cable to connect) or an external power brick.

The only other problem you may run into is your document compatibility with newer programs. For instance, old ClarisWorks documents would need to be converted to work with modern word processor software. That requires a machine capable of running Appleworks version 6, which again will be an older machine now.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

You can remove the hard drive and put it into an external case, however, yes, hard drives have changed too. The most common external case will have a SATA drive interface. This drive will require a PATA drive interface.

So, what you'd be looking for is:

3.5" USB2 External hard drive enclosure for PATA hard drive.

NOTE: PATA used to be referred to as 'ATA' or 'IDE' but is now more commonly referred to as PATA to distinguish it from SATA, the new interface.

The enclosure will require it's own power supply - this may be an internal power supply (with a mains cable to connect) or an external power brick.

The only other problem you may run into is your document compatibility with newer programs. For instance, old ClarisWorks documents would need to be converted to work with modern word processor software. That requires a machine capable of running Appleworks version 6, which again will be an older machine now.

Awesome! So that basically means I can connect the hard drive to a newer Mac with USB. I'm aware of the compatibility issue, but I have plenty of other Macs, from the 80s to today So I'll find one where I can open and convert them!