How do I transfer files from old Mac desktop to a new one?

Here are the Apple technical specs for the Power MacIntosh 7200/120. Most of the 1.4 MB 3.5 inch Floppies one sees on Amazon declare only for Windows 11 or older. Some come with a USB-A to USB-C adapter for newer computers. I would look at some of the reviews to see which of these drives someone actually used with macOS despite the vendor claiming otherwise. You won't need a driver for macOS if it does work. Cost: ~ $15.

Should you use the 7200/120 floppy drive, format the 1.44 MB floppies as FAT-32. I happen to still have an external VST floppy drive from my old 1999 iMac DV SE days and it still works to read floppies from the 1990s on macOS Sequoia. Very likely the only software on a modern Mac that will open those really old Microsoft documents is now the free LibreOffice Suite. I know Apple's Pages will refuse to open these pre-2000 Word documents as being too old.

Need_help_give_help wrote:

If you can get a USB thumb drive, plug into the old Mac. You might have to format it to Mac Extended Journaled using Disk Utility.

Power Macintosh 7200/120: Technical Specifications - Apple Support says that the machine does not have any built-in USB ports. Or built-in FireWire ports for that matter.

That means that the OP can't use a USB thumb drive unless they have, or can get, a USB PCIe card designed to work on a PowerPC-based Mac. The only built-in external drive interface is SCSI-1.

EveryMac – Apple Power Macintosh 7200/120 (PC) Specs says that the internal hard drive interface is SCSI – so pulling the drive and putting it into a modern enclosure doesn't look like an option.

It appears that while this Mac does not have a dedicated floppy drive port for adding an external floppy drive, it has an internal floppy drive capable of reading and writing 1.44 MB discs. That would be good news for the OP.

I don’t think you even have FireWire available, unless someone installed a FireWire expansion card, and you are running at least Mac OS 8.5.

MacTracket shows this:

—————

CONNECTIONS

Wi-Fi: None

Bluetooth: None

Ethernet: AAUI-15, 10BASE-T

Modem: None

ADB: 1

Serial: 2

SCSI: 1 - DB-25

Floppy Port: None

Display Connection: DB-15

Audio In: 1 - 3.5-mm analog input jack

Audio Out: 1 - 3.5-mm analog output jack, 1 - Built-in speaker

Note that ADB and SCSI are not hot-pluggable - connecting or disconnecting accessories with the power on risks damage.

That machine also has three PCIe 2.0

slots.

At one time you could get USB and FiteWire PCIe cards that would work in a PowerPC-based Mac. I don’t think anyone has sold new cards like that for some time, but you might find a used one if you search hard enough.

Re: “ nor would using 3.5 floppy disks be of any use going to a modern Mac”

They would as long as they were 1.44 MB 3.5” floppies formatted using FAT or HFS. Modern Macs can read 1.44 MB floppies with the aid of external USB floppy drives. 400K and 800K floppies cannot be read that way because Apple wrote the data on them in a special way to get more than the 360K and 720K available on corresponding PC floppies.

1.44 MB floppies formatted using HFS+ would presumably also work, if you can create them. But modern Macs no longer support plain HFS (no “+”).

The trick would not be attaching a third party USB floppy drive to a modern Mac, but finding an old USB PCIe card to let you attach it to that PowerMac 7200. Of course, if you had the USB card, you might be able to use a small USB flash drive, instead of floppies.

I can well understand your reason in saving these old documents.

If you can get a USB thumb drive, plug into the old Mac. You might have to format it to Mac Extended Journaled using Disk Utility.

You could use an external HD too but you might get into trouble if not formatted as Mac Extended Journaled as you probably don’t want to erase such a device if it has your current data on it.

Then drag and drop your files/folder onto the thumb until it is full (or not). Eject the thumb and plug into you new computer and do drag and drop again.

I am pretty sure the current MS Office Word will read MS Word 98.

I have found LibreOffice is very good at translating old documents even ClarisWorks word documents.

Firewire connection, even if your ‘new’ mac has it, is probably unnecessary.

As an aside I run a ‘programme’ called Sheepshaver, which emulates OS9 so I use for old Claris/Appleworks documents. I use Appleworks drawing programme regularly so that’s perhaps another avenue you can pursue

once you have got the files off your PowerPC.

Good luck and if you get stuck I’ll try some experiments as I have several PowerPCs hanging around.

Another way could possibly be to wire the Mac OS 9 Power Macintosh 7200/120 (by RJ-45 Ethernet cable) to one of the LAN ports of a Wi-Fi router. The idea would be to make files on the 7200/120 accessible via Mac OS 9 Web Sharing as described in the following article:

https://happymacs.wordpress.com/2014/07/12/network-your-classic-macintosh-with-windows-part-4-using-web-sharing/

You could then check whether a modern Mac or PC connected to the same router would be able to (via a standard web browser) download/see/read (at least some) files on the 7200/120. Look upon this as an experiment.

Need_help_give_help wrote:

Thanks Servant of Cats and sorry M5Marco, I sit corrected I misread the original post and thought it said had USB ports, actually said the opposite.

That's OK. I read the "Floppy Port: None" in MacTracker, and thought that the machine didn't have a floppy drive.

Turns out it does have a built-in one – and a 1.44 MB one at that.

M5Marco wrote:

Also for sure I can connect with Ethernet the 7200/120 to my router and see what happens. I do believe the 7200/120 has an Ethernet connection on the back if I remember correctly. Would the router even recognize that old of a Mac? And a modern Mac would be able to “talk with” the old Mac over network?

A modern Mac and the old 7200/120 will not be able to use normal file sharing over a network (the protocols are too different). However, if you take a close look at the above Network Your Classic Macintosh with Windows, Part 4 – Using Web Sharing article, you will find that web sharing (HTTP) via TCP/IP using existing Mac OS 9 software may work. That is, the web server is on the 7200/120, and an appropriate browser on a modern Mac (or PC) could be used to download files from that server. Whether or not these files actually can be used/read on the modern computer depends on the exact file type/format and the available applications.

Also, you mentioned printing via an old printer. Yet another way may be to open a file in a suitable program on the old Mac and use a now free printer driver (extension) called PrintToPDF (https://www.jwwalker.com/pages/pdf.html) in order to print/save to a PDF file (which then could be transferred to and read/printed on a modern Mac/PC). One problem would be to get the printer driver (extension) onto the 7200/120 to begin with, though...

I wonder if you could connect the 7200 to a modem Mac via Ethernet and a LAN and set up the modern Mac to do File Sharing. Then mount the modern Mac’s network disk on the 7200 and copy files to it.

Thanks Servant of Cats and sorry M5Marco, I sit corrected I misread the original post and thought it said had USB ports, actually said the opposite.

I think that connecting the mac using Ethernet to your router is likely to work. I'd try that first.

Hi M5Marco

I would be interested to know whether you managed to do the transfer and if so how did you do it?