Possible to find external enclosure for OS 7.5.5?

[Daennea]

My 5200CD seems to have died permanently, but I'd like to retrieve its hard drive (which has been replaced comparatively recently and does not seem to be the problem). Unfortunately, it was last running Mac OS 7.5.5 and I don't seem to be able to find an external enclosure that supports pre-9.2.2 (I am notoriously poor at finding things, but still ...).

The internal hard drive is an IDE drive; preferably, I'm looking for a USB connection but will take any suggestions at this point.

Are there any good places to look for such an item, preferably new?

 

[spork183]

what is your goal in recovery? Do you wish to retain it as boot drive for old computers? If that is the case, you would need an old SCSI interface. If you want the drive as external storage on a newer machine, buy a usb enclosure and reformat.

I believe 8.5 was the first Mac os supporting usb, so factor that in to your expectations.

 

[Consultant]

If you pull the hard drive out of the computer, most IDE to USB enclosure would work. Shouldn't be any problem to access the data; usually the enclosure won't care about the OS.

what is your goal in recovery? Do you wish to retain it as boot drive for old computers? If that is the case, you would need an old SCSI interface. If you want the drive as external storage on a newer machine, buy a usb enclosure and reformat.

I believe 8.5 was the first Mac os supporting usb, so factor that in to your expectations.

That computer has IDE drive.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_performa/stats/mac_performa_5200cd.html

 

[Daennea]

Thanks for the answers!

It is definitely an IDE drive; this one is a replacement for the original. The 5200 was kind of unusual for Macs of its era.

While I would love to be able to boot from it (I liked 7.5.5), all the other Macs in the household are of the G3 and G4 era, which supposedly do not support booting from lower than OS 8.1. They all have USB connections.

Mainly, I'd like to access some files that were on the desktop (my backup method was not including the desktop. Oops.) and then perhaps keep it as a second backup drive.

If you pull the hard drive out of the computer, most IDE to USB enclosure would work. Shouldn't be any problem to access the data; usually the enclosure won't care about the OS.

Thank you! That's the best news I've had all week. I was starting to worry that my goal was impossible. I guess I can assume if the description says the enclosure supports 9.2.2, it'll support this drive.