Transfer Amiga HD files to Mac??

[Stike]

Hi guys!
I have a 4.5 GB HD in my oldy Amiga 4000, and I would like to transfer all the historic data over to my Mac. Problem is, whats the best way?

- Floppy: DOS formatted, possible. Takes ages though.

- No ethernet port, sorry

- I heard Linux is able to read the Amiga Fast File System. Couldn´t OS X use the same drivers (unix??) to access my HD if I plug it in?

- Any other ideas?

Thank you a lot already!

 

[Mechcozmo]

Is the hard drive SCSI?

Assuming that there is NO other network ports on it, what about a DOS formatted ZIP disk? They made SCSI-type external ones.

 

[robbieduncan]

- I heard Linux is able to read the Amiga Fast File System. Couldn´t OS X use the same drivers (unix??) to access my HD if I plug it in?

This won't work:

1) Linux != Unix. Linux is a unix-like OS.

2) Different kernels. Linux drivers only work on Linux. Mac OSX drivers only work on Mac OSX. Solaris (SunOS) driver only work on, well you get the idea. Unix is mostly about the interface provided to the higher level application programmer. It does not say much about how the kernel is implemented (although does place some limits on the facilities the kernel must provide).

 

[HELLFISH]

There's this for $20USD

http://www.matthewdesantis.com/store/photos/profiles/hydraz2.html

 

[combatcolin]

Zorro II ethernet cards should be quite(ish) cheap.

 

[Stike]

Thanks for all the input!

I was taking a look at various ethernet cards for zorro slots....
I found: http://www.nordicglobal.com/etherrec.html that the Hydra isn´t exactly a recommended model.

Other models like the X-Surf show a price tag of easily 100 bucks

I am looking into the possiblility of using a cheapo CD burner for the Amiga... I guess this will be the cheapest solution.

Not that I would bother about floppys - but I have mp3s on it - too large!

 

[steveyg777]

i want this ability too. can i not just boot up a linux distro cd and then read the files that way and save them to a usb drive or somtehing? is there not a way of converting an amiga hard drive to a 'hard drive file' used on uae/e-uae????

 

[Stike]

Hey everyone,
I managed finally to transfer all my Amiga HDD files to the Mac. It took a whole day for all files, but hey, at least it worked!

Here is what I did:

Using Parallels with Windows XP and the "Amiga Forever" Emulation Bundle, I connected the Amiga HDD as an external USB drive and "mounted" the Amiga HDD before starting the emulation. In the Amiga environment, I copied the whole drive to the other "virtual drive" which the emulation booted from (which is simply a directory on the Windows partition...).

And so I had all my old invaluable Amiga files on the Windows partition and had only once more to copy them from XP to the Mac via Parallels. Since the Mac HDD is available as a network drive, it was easy to copy!

Aaaand here we go

Also, as a small bonus... this Amiga Forever package is really really great for the Amiga fan! If I had the time for it, I could even turn my old drive in a new startup drive for the emulation and continue as if I just turned on my beloved Amiga...

 

[allan.nyholm]

I should have just kept my old A4000 and done what you did. I still have sleepless nights over selling it back in 2001-2002. I wanted to move on but forgot to take a step back and really appreciate the computer - I could have bought a new monitor for it because it was really hurting my eyes and probably the reason I use glasses today. who knows.

I still dream of Directory Opus 4 and DirWorks and all those filemanagers and the easiness of just being able to look through the whole list of directories and copy and move things between them.

The memories. Still I think that OS X is a big step over AmigaOS 3.9 and also AmigaOS 4, even though I have never tried AmigaOS 4 in person.

I'm glad to hear that you figured it out. I would have suggested something like zipping or lha'ing(lzx'ing) the whole Amiga harddisk or something silly like that, since it would be possible and then using split&concat tools to split up the huge file before burning them to CD's.

 

[steveyg777]

Thanks!!!

Hey everyone,
I managed finally to transfer all my Amiga HDD files to the Mac. It took a whole day for all files, but hey, at least it worked!

Here is what I did:

Using Parallels with Windows XP and the "Amiga Forever" Emulation Bundle, I connected the Amiga HDD as an external USB drive and "mounted" the Amiga HDD before starting the emulation. In the Amiga environment, I copied the whole drive to the other "virtual drive" which the emulation booted from (which is simply a directory on the Windows partition...).

And so I had all my old invaluable Amiga files on the Windows partition and had only once more to copy them from XP to the Mac via Parallels. Since the Mac HDD is available as a network drive, it was easy to copy!

Aaaand here we go

Also, as a small bonus... this Amiga Forever package is really really great for the Amiga fan! If I had the time for it, I could even turn my old drive in a new startup drive for the emulation and continue as if I just turned on my beloved Amiga...

Hey Stike! Thanks for the info on your success!

I'm in the same situation as you (got a mac book pro running bootcamp) and wanted to get my stuff off 2 hard drives so i can virtualise everything for convenience.

now i've read your post i will be trying it myself, although i need to buy a USB external hard drive case for a 3.5" HD (it's probably DMA; not even UDMA! lol) so i can connect the drives upto my MBP - anyone recommend one? (i'm in the UK). Also gotta get parralels 4 working as it won't start for some reason! DOH!!!!

thanks though mate