[karbar]

I am trying to get the hard drive data from my old mac - any ideas; I have no internet for the old Mac SE; no 3.5 floppy for the Pro:unsure?

[Rcovell]

I helped a friend a while back do something similar. We used a SuperDisk drive connected to the old machine to download her data, then, moved the connection to her newer machine to copy it back. We had to use a translation program called MacLinkPlus to 'read' the old files and some of the formatting was lost, but, she saved the basic data.

A SuperDisk drive is an older external drive storage device that used special disks to record data. It was a common backup device for Macs years back. It also read floppy disks, which was useful. You wouldn't need to use a SuperDisk, any external drive could work. It will depend on the connections you can make to the old machine. What are yours?

Bob.

[gra_login1]

Easiest way is to get an USB external floppy for your laptop and transfer 1.4 Mb at a time from the 16 Mb(?) drive.
Or and it only gets more complicated now!
You will need access to more modern yet vintage hardware.
Second find an external SCSI drive and transfer to the SCSI disk, plug the external scsi into any mac that has a scsi interface such as Quadras or Power PCs. Then transfer via appletalk over ethernet to the laptop.
Remove the HD form the SE and take it to any SCSI mac & plug it in in parallel with the existing disk and transfer your data. Again depending on the machine it may have ether net or a wireless connection.

Good luck!

[albloom]

It's good that you have the FDHD version. Folks still make USB floppy disk drives
for cheap ($25 or so at Amazon). Sneakernet (copy to floppy on the SE, copy from
floppy on the MBP) has served me well at times.

If you have files larger than 1mb, you can Stuffit them. Segment if the SIT archive
is still larger than 1mb. The free OSX version of Stuffit Expander should (I hate that
word) handle the old archive format. Try it and see.

That takes care of the physical problem. File format is less tractible. I suggest
converting on the SE to something your MPB apps can read. If you have a MacWrite
file, do a "save as" to RTF (Rich Text Format) or Word PC. Whatever works. If that
doesn't pan out completely (It won't), send a sample to the MBP, and see if an OSX
app can read it: Graphic Converter is excellent for picture files. MacLink Plus can maybe
help, A lot of us have been through this exercise. Let us know what file types you have,
and we might be able to help.

Good luck!

[karbar]

I started making floppy discs on the SE and then walking them to a friendly PC to email back to the MAC. File conversion is the tougher part. Thanks for the ideas on that. They are mostly text documents.