What is on my G4 without a monitor??

[rayswrld]

I have had an iMac for well over a year now but still have my old G4 sitting under my desk. I have finally decided to sell it or donate it, but first want to see if there is anything on it that I haven't imported to my iMac previously. The problem is that I gave my monitor away some time ago. Is there any way I can see what is on the G4's hard drive using the iMac? Thanks.

 

[yippy]

Yes, connect the two computers together using a Firewire cable. Connect a keyboard to the G4 and turn it on holding down the T key. After a while, the G4s hard drive should show up on your iMacs desktop as if it were an external drive.

 

[madog]

If you don't have a FireWire cable (one that both your iMac and G4 have, most likely FW 400, 6-pin to 6-pin) then pick one up. You plug in a keyboard to the G4, boot it up and hold down the T key while it boots. It shouldn't take more than 30 seconds, so once you do that plug it into the iMac through the FW cable. The G4 should then appear as an external drive on the iMac, and you can then navigate through its contents and /or format it through Disk Utility on the iMac to destroy its contents. If there is any data you are particularly concerned about, when formatting the drive through DU, have it "write 0's" over the drive. It could potentially take several hours (overnight) but would give you additional security when you sell it to someone else.

 

[rayswrld]

It worked

Thanks so much for your quick replies. Worked like a charm. And thanks for the extra info about erasing the disk.