High Sierra cannot write to any of my PPC macs in target disk mode

[Project Alice]

So I discovered that High Sierra seems to have some permissions problem with older versions of Mac OS X. I suppose this could be posted in that section, but I feel like I'd get more responses here.

I just got a G3 pismo the other day, and I'm just trying to load it up with some old games and software. Most of which is already on my iMac G3 and G4. I connected the PowerBook to the G4 with the PB being the one in target disk mode, copied everything that I needed to it no problem. Fast forward to right now, I have it plugged into my Mac Pro with HS. The drives get info box is pictured, all the permissions options are greyed out. Unchecking the "Ignore ownership on this volume" makes no difference.

The exact same thing happens with this Mac Pro and my iMac G3. I thought it was an isolated issue with my iMac because of the sata to IDE adapter I have in it, but being as this PowerBook does the same thing I think its a problem with High Sierra (figures). My MacBook with HS cannot write to them either.
Does this happen to anyone else, and possibly have a fix? I need to get myself another firewire drive, I havent had one in years. But USB is next useless with all these USB 1.1 Power Macs lol.
Both the G3s are running 10.4.11 and 9.2.

 

[AL1630]

I found this on the apple forums, and they say it might be a problem with APFS if thet's what you're running. It might work if you have another drive with El Capitan or Sierra and can try it from there.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8252205

Edit - I connected a PowerBook G4 to my MacBook (Running plain Sierra), and it worked fine. So that's more evidence that it's a HS/APFS problem.

 

[redheeler]

I noticed it detects the formatting as Mac OS Extended and not Mac OS Extended (Journaled). It's possible that High Sierra dropped write-compatibility with the former as Mac OS X has been defaulting to the latter since 10.3. Try enabling journaling using the Tiger Disk Utility and see if it works then.

I found this on the apple forums, and they say it might be a problem with APFS if thet's what you're running. It might work if you have another drive with El Capitan or Sierra and can try it from there.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8252205

Edit - I connected a PowerBook G4 to my MacBook (Running plain Sierra), and it worked fine. So that's more evidence that it's a HS/APFS problem.

He's not trying to access the Mac Pro from the older Mac (where APFS would become an issue), but rather the other way around.

 

[AL1630]

He's not trying to access the Mac Pro from the older Mac (where APFS would become an issue), but rather the other way around.

Yeah, I guess I got a bit confused there. As you said, it's probably be the journaling or some other file system incompatibility.

 

[AphoticD]

Without having a fix, maybe an interim solution could be to Firewire TDM your Pismo onto any of your non-HiSi Macs, then file share that TDM'd volume and connect to it over SMB from the MP. If you're networking via Gigabit Ethernet, then you should at least get full Firewire 400 throughput.

EDIT: just read your signature.. and it looks like your non-HiSi Macs aren't gigabit capable. So maybe just connect to the Pismo over 100mbit Ethernet?

 

[Project Alice]

Actually

Without having a fix, maybe an interim solution could be to Firewire TDM your Pismo onto any of your non-HiSi Macs, then file share that TDM'd volume and connect to it over SMB from the MP. If you're networking via Gigabit Ethernet, then you should at least get full Firewire 400 throughput.

EDIT: just read your signature.. and it looks like your non-HiSi Macs aren't gigabit capable. So maybe just connect to the Pismo over 100mbit Ethernet?

I have more Macs than in my signature lol. I ended up replacing my Mac Pro with my Power Mac G5 for what I need to do with this powerbook.

As for the formatting, HS is the only one that sees it as non journaled for some reason. It's definitely formatted mac os extended (journaled). I noticed it wasn't reading that right either.
My Mac Pro is APFS, but only on the boot SSD. My MacBook has high sierra as well and it's not using APFS at all. This screen shot is from the G5 instead.
Firewire works as a network protocol too so I could still use it over 100mb Ethernet but it's still slower than true target mode.

 

[bobesch]

There might be something wrong with your firewire-connection ...
You'll certainly use any Firewire-400-To-800-adapter, that might a the problem.
I've just connected my 15"MBP running HiSi with my 12"PBG4 (Running in TargetMode) via FireWire-400/800-cable and accessing the PB's-drives in TargetMode (Leopard/Tiger/Data-partitions) works fine.

 

[Project Alice]

There might be something wrong with your firewire-connection ...
You'll certainly use any Firewire-400-To-800-adapter, that might a the problem.
I've just connected my 15"MBP running HiSi with my 12"PBG4 (Running in TargetMode) via FireWire-400/800-cable and accessing the PB's-drives in TargetMode (Leopard/Tiger/Data-partitions) works fine.

its FW 400 to FW 400. I dont even have an 800 cable unfortunately. And the Mac Pro has no issue writing to the G5 via this method. Something involving the OS 9 drivers maybe?

 

[bobesch]

its FW 400 to FW 400. I dont even have an 800 cable unfortunately. And the Mac Pro has no issue writing to the G5 via this method. Something involving the OS 9 drivers maybe?

Didn't get it right... I presume, your HiSi-MBP has FW800 (or Thunderbolt) and your PB has FW400. Am I wrong? And what system does your Pismo run?

 

[Project Alice]

Didn't get it right... I presume, your HiSi-MBP has FW800 (or Thunderbolt) and your PB has FW400. Am I wrong? And what system does your Pismo run?

The mac Pro has fw400 and 800. It's a 2008, cMP so no thunderbolt. And yes the Pismo has fw400 only. And USB 1.1, which we all know how useful that is.

 

[bunnspecial]

Didn't get it right... I presume, your HiSi-MBP has FW800 (or Thunderbolt) and your PB has FW400. Am I wrong? And what system does your Pismo run?

The OP is running a Mac Pro-presumably the 3,1 in his signature. These have 2xFW400 and 2xFW800.

The 4,1 lost all its FW400 ports and put FW800 in their place, but the 3,1 does have 400.

 

[LightBulbFun]

one thing I noticed with PPC macs in TDM is that

in modern OS X systems systems older then a certain age will show up as Read only in that I cant even erase the Drive its completely read only (like a CD-ROM) and this is regardless of File system

my Sawtooth iMac G3 (PM2,2) iBook G3 500Mhz SnowBook and IIRC Pismo all show up as Read only in modern OS X versions (10.11+ at least, iv not tested what version of OS X this Read only thing came into force exactly) but more "modern" PPC systems like my 800Mhz iBook G3 PowerMac G4 MDD, DLSDs G5s etc will show up as Read write in a modern OS X system just fine and I can erase its HDD with no issues.

it seems like Apple at some point dropped write support for the oldest Macs that support target disk mode, it certainly sent me for a Loop at first before I figured out what was going on.

 

[Project Alice]

one thing I noticed with PPC macs in TDM is that

in modern OS X systems systems older then a certain age will show up as Read only in that I cant even erase the Drive its completely read only (like a CD-ROM) and this is regardless of File system

my Sawtooth iMac G3 (PM2,2) iBook G3 500Mhz SnowBook and IIRC Pismo all show up as Read only in modern OS X versions (10.11+ at least, iv not tested what version of OS X this Read only thing came into force exactly) but more "modern" PPC systems like my 800Mhz iBook G3 PowerMac G4 MDD, DLSDs G5s etc will show up as Read write in a modern OS X system just fine and I can erase its HDD with no issues.

it seems like Apple at some point dropped write support for the oldest Macs that support target disk mode, it certainly sent me for a Loop at first before I figured out what was going on.

I think that's exactly what's going on.. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the OS that's on the older mac, leopard on my G5 has write access. I haven't tried my iBook G4 or iMac G4. I'll hook those up and see if it it's a pre leopard thing.. Either way I think I'm going to invest in a factory graphic card for this thing, I have a gtx 1060 so I'm stuck on leopard. If I get a gt120 or something I could dual boot with snow leopard or something and get around this ridiculous issue.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I think that's exactly what's going on.. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the OS that's on the older mac, leopard on my G5 has write access. I haven't tried my iBook G4 or iMac G4. I'll hook those up and see if it it's a pre leopard thing.. Either way I think I'm going to invest in a factory graphic card for this thing, I have a gtx 1060 so I'm stuck on leopard. If I get a gt120 or something I could dual boot with snow leopard or something and get around this ridiculous issue.

when you say "OS thats on the older mac" are your talking about the Mac thats in TDM (Pismo in this case)?

if so, the OS said Mac has installed on its HDD does not matter (as its not running when its in TDM) it just seems like Modern OS X does not fully support those older PPC Macs in Target disk mode. (ie they can only be read from they cannot be written) what is on the hard drive of said Mac in TDM does not make any difference

 

[bobesch]

one thing I noticed with PPC macs in TDM is that

in modern OS X systems systems older then a certain age will show up as Read only in that I cant even erase the Drive its completely read only (like a CD-ROM) and this is regardless of File system

my Sawtooth iMac G3 (PM2,2) iBook G3 500Mhz SnowBook and IIRC Pismo all show up as Read only in modern OS X versions (10.11+ at least, iv not tested what version of OS X this Read only thing came into force exactly) but more "modern" PPC systems like my 800Mhz iBook G3 PowerMac G4 MDD, DLSDs G5s etc will show up as Read write in a modern OS X system just fine and I can erase its HDD with no issues.

it seems like Apple at some point dropped write support for the oldest Macs that support target disk mode, it certainly sent me for a Loop at first before I figured out what was going on.

Yep, exactly as you described! Fired up my Clamshell (os9/Tiger/data-partition) in TDM this morning and drives are read-only, whereas the all partitions of my 12"PowerBook (Leopard/Tiger/data) are read/write.

It really seems to be a pre-Leopard thing or maybe specifically related to the optional os9-booting-drivers that can be installed with pre-Leopard OSX (also I previously didn't succeed in partitioning a Tiger-build drive without erasing the whole drive, even trying this from another PPC/Leopard running the Tiger-build drive in TDM)

 

[Project Alice]

when you say "OS thats on the older mac" are your talking about the Mac thats in TDM (Pismo in this case)?

if so, the OS said Mac has installed on its HDD does not matter (as its not running when its in TDM) it just seems like Modern OS X does not fully support those older PPC Macs in Target disk mode. (ie they can only be read from they cannot be written) what is on the hard drive of said Mac in TDM does not make any difference

Yes that's what I meant. I only mentioned it because it seems I can TDM with write on leopard, but as I said I've only tested my PowerMac G5, not the older G4s with leopard yet. But if you've tested this already I won't bother.

It really annoys me that apple does stuff like this. It makes miss the old Jobs apple even more, it seems like things no longer "just work" like the mac is supposed to be about.

 

[bobesch]

Yes that's what I meant. I only mentioned it because it seems I can TDM with write on leopard, but as I said I've only tested my PowerMac G5, not the older G4s with leopard yet. But if you've tested this already I won't bother.

It really annoys me that apple does stuff like this. It makes miss the old Jobs apple even more, it seems like things no longer "just work" like the mac is supposed to be about.

Well, even if TDM doesn't work bidirectional with pre-Leopard-Macs you may use FileSharing for that purpose.
Works even without any cables and in the middle of nowhere by creating an hotspot with one of the Macs and build a wireless network-connection.
Or use webDAV to exchange files (works even with os9/Goliath).
The glass is half-full... (still)

 

[weckart]

Or simpler still, get one of these generic adapters


at least one, if not both of the ports should get enough juice from the Pismo's cardbus port to power up a flash drive without any additional power supply. Also both ports sit flush inside the cardbus port so no snagging from the side of the Pismo.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Or simpler still, get one of these generic adapters

View attachment 756628
at least one, if not both of the ports should get enough juice from the Pismo's cardbus port to power up a flash drive without any additional power supply. Also both ports sit flush inside the cardbus port so no snagging from the side of the Pismo.

extra info:

make sure you get one with an NEC Chipset for the best compatibility with Mac OS

(I have one of these as well and it works pretty good in the Pismo, even works well in my PowerBook 3400c,s and Kanga)

 

[Project Alice]

Or simpler still, get one of these generic adapters

View attachment 756628
at least one, if not both of the ports should get enough juice from the Pismo's cardbus port to power up a flash drive without any additional power supply. Also both ports sit flush inside the cardbus port so no snagging from the side of the Pismo.

I do want one of these eventually, very useful. I am going to invest in a FireWire enclosure though. I used to have one years ago but I've since then gotten rid of everything I owned and am now getting a decent collection of old macs again. FW drives are pretty much a requirement.

Well, even if TDM doesn't work bidirectional with pre-Leopard-Macs you may use FileSharing for that purpose.
Works even without any cables and in the middle of nowhere by creating an hotspot with one of the Macs and build a wireless network-connection.
Or use webDAV to exchange files (works even with os9/Goliath).
The glass is half-full... (still)

I do use file sharing for the most part, at least on anything running leopard. My HS devices don't seem to want to "see" Tiger or lower. Ive basically been filesharing to my iMac G4 with the G3s in TDM to that.