I'd like to copy old photos from my old external backup drive. It has a USB 2.0/Firewire interface. When I connect it to my Macbook Pro and click on the user folder, I get the spinning wheel. Eventually, it will cause my MacBook to sleep and not wake up until I disconnect the external drive and restart the macbook.
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 12.7
You will need to connect that old drive to an older Mac running macOS 10.14 Mojave or earlier (possibly macOS 10.15 Catalina, but I'm not certain on that one) because Apple removed the ability of macOS to read the older partitions & file systems used on such an old drive.
Another option if you have a Windows PC would be to see if Paragon provides a Windows driver to access the old Apple partition map partitions & HFS file system (note there is no "+")....I don't know if your drive is using HFS+ or just HFS....Paragon seems to currently only offer the more recent HFS+ file system support.
If not, then I do know that Linux can definitely access those older drives, so you could boot & use a bootable Knoppix Linux USB stick on that Windows PC to access that old Apple drive. I think it had the necessary drivers installed by default, but it has been over a decade since I last tried to access such an old Apple hard drive using Knoppix. As long as you have a recent version of Knoppix that isn't too old, it should be possible to install the necessary driver even while booted to the Knoppix USB stick.
However, I'm concerned that perhaps that hard drive is failing due to it causing the system such problems....or it could be due to the adapter being used. Hard to say. Sometimes old hard drives don't spin up or function properly after sitting for years....sometimes the drive may just need to be powered on for a while to loosen up the spindle & drive heads.
Some options available to people with Thunderbolt & USB 2.
USB-2 is 350 Mbps
USB-3, Thunderbolt and Firewire are 800 Mbps and higher.
Thunderbolt 2 drives and Firewire drive cases and docking stations are very hard to obtain.
LaCie made a Thunderbolt 2 to 2.5" SATA hard drive that you can get on eBay.
TripLite and Belkin have USB-3 to SATA and Parallel ATA hard drive adapter, but on an older Mac with USB-2 you will only get USB 2 speeds with this. Make sure to get one with an AC/DC power adapter. They are around $40.
So don't be surprised if the speed of data transfer is slow if it works at all. Don't try to multitask much while you do the data transfer. And turn off Energy Saver put hard drives to sleep, and don't close the lid of the laptop while it works. Use Screen Saver instead of Energy Saver.
It might be best if you upgrade your Mac's built-in hard drive to an SSD first and setup the OS as a clone there, and then try the data transfer from the old Macs. Platter drives make the final end of the transfer very slow.
If the installation on the external hard drive is either a clone or a Time Machine backup, and your Mac has the same or newer operating system, the Migration Assistant will import the data.
Now I'm not sure how you have Firewire and a Monterey capable Mac. Unless you mean Thunderbolt.
These are Thunderbolt 2 cables
These are Firewire 800 cables
USB 2 is half the speed of Firewire 800.
HWTech wrote:
Another option if you have a Windows PC would be to see if Paragon provides a Windows driver to access the old Apple partition map partitions & HFS file system (note there is no "+")....I don't know if your drive is using HFS+ or just HFS....Paragon seems to currently only offer the more recent HFS+ file system support.
Other World Computing sells MacDrive. I don't know offhand whether it provides HFS drivers for Windows or just HFS+ and APFS ones.
a brody wrote:
Thunderbolt 2 drives and Firewire drive cases and docking stations are very hard to obtain.
Other World Computing is the only source of FireWire drives and enclosures of which I know. They once offered both desktop and portable drives and enclosures. The portable ones went "bye-bye", and now just the desktop ones are left.
Other World Computing – OWC Mercury Elite Pro with USB 3.2 (5Gb/s) + eSATA + FW800
These drives and enclosures can connect either via FireWire 800 or via USB 3.0, but the enclosures are designed for SATA drive mechanisms, not Parallel ATA ones.
Thank you! I should have explained that my external drive is an old IDE type with the first generation Firewire ports. I used this drive as a backup for my G3 and G4 iBooks (PPC) and Maybe my G5 iMac, maybe 15 or so years ago. It appears to be a startup volume with the OS installed, but probably Mac OS 9 or an early OS 10 version.
Yes, and correct. My MacBook Pro only has (1) USB port and (2) Thunderbolt ports.
I'm only interested in retrieving my old photos or iPhoto library, if possible. The only interface that I would be able to use are the USB 2.0 ports, unless there is a USB to Thunderbolt adapter, but would that combination even work to access data from an IDE/ATA drive? Using only a USB cable to connect the two only results in the forever spinning wheel, although I can see the system folders. Gah, I hope that I'm making sense here.
Thank you! I do have an old white MacBook that is running El Capitan or High Sierra that I can try to start up. That would be great if that's all it took. If not, I also have an old Dell windows machine that I keep for car diagnostics and could proceed with your instructions from there. I hear what you're saying, though, about the possibility of that old external drive being too out of shape to spin up properly.
I'll try this out today and check in later!
There are no USB Thunderbolt adapters, at least none that support booting.
Apple has made USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 adapters, and Thunderbolt 2 to Firewire 800 adapters, none of which support booting off those drives.
Drives that had been in a G4 or G5 computer are likely to be very old, and hard to read anyway, and your best hope is to be able to read some documents. Applications will likely not be able to run on a relatively current MacOS.
I might also add, getting a PC to recognize a Mac boot drive with anything but networking to the Mac is not very practical. There are third party software that support it, but the process is also very slow.
Ah, got it. I was thinking the same. Thanks!
Thank you! Ah, that's helpful information. I have a spare 2.5" SSD here that I could install.
I like OWC and have purchased many peripherals, RAM, HDs and used Macs from them over the years. I will check out the Mercury Elite Pro.
How to transfer data from old external drive with usb 2.0 to macbook pro
