The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.

Mactop Drive Problem - Hard drive enclosure?

LewiePLewieP Registered User regular
edited April 2007 in Games and Technology
So a friend of mine who is a Macbook Pro user had an issue that is way beyond his level of technical know how, and has turned to me. Macs are something I know very little about, so I turn to you, G&T to solution this problem for me.

He used to have a Macbook G4 (is that even what they are called? the apple product line up confuses me...) but the screen broke compeltly - no problem, he had insurance. He was upgraded to a Macbook pro since they don't make the exact same screen size as he had in macbook anymore, nice lil' bonus. Anyway, he was given the option of paying an additional £40 to get his origonal 80gb hard drive back too, which ho chose to do, since it had some stuff he wanted to get back.

Now, he is asking me how he should get the stuff off his hard drive, and is there any way he can use it as an external hard drive. I am pretty sure something such as a hard drive enclosure exists, but have never used on myself, and when I planed to look into them a while back, amazon had a missprice of a 500gb usb hard drive at less than half price, so I got that and havent looked back.

He has said he could do with a USb hard drive too, since he travels a bit, so if a USB hard drive enclosure is significantly cheaper than an 80gb usb hard drive, that would be good too.

TLDR, I need a way of using a 80gb macbook hard drive with a macbook pro to transfer files, and possibly use as a usb hard drive, the simpler the better.

LewieP on

Posts

  • yalborapyalborap Registered User regular
    edited April 2007
    Figure out which interface the hard drive is, get a 2.5" USB(or firewire) enclosure for that interface, shove hard drive in, you're good to go.

    yalborap on
  • maximumzeromaximumzero I...wait, what? New Orleans, LARegistered User regular
    edited April 2007
    The "Macbook G4" was refered to commonly as an "iBook".

    It uses a standard IDE/ATA connection, so that's the kind of enclosure you want.

    maximumzero on
    FU7kFbw.png
    Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    edited April 2007
    Aside from the processor, Mac's did use pretty much the same hardware as PC's back in the day, nothing really special to them. IT's just a normal 80GB 2.5" IDE drive

    wunderbar on
    XBL: thewunderbar PSN: thewunderbar NNID: thewunderbar Steam: wunderbar87 Twitter: wunderbar
  • LaveLave regular
    edited April 2007
    Yeah get an enclosure like this one http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-000-AK&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat= (assuming ti's IDE).

    Who I bought an external dvd writer and an external hard drive from without problems. They are good and cheap, and don't stock shit (according to my PC loving geeky chum at least).

    Normally when you have a disk in an enclosure for macs you can do lots of special stuff - like boot from it - etc. But as it seems he had an iBook/Powerbook then he's shifting from PPC -> x86 so that won't work. Thats why I think USB would be better - as it would let him use it on other machines.

    Though if he wanted to transfer files from Windows/Linux PCs to his mac with his new external harddrive he would have to wipe it and reformat it to fat32.

    Lave on
    poirot1vi.gif
    Scholar and a Gentleman? Critical of bad science and religion? Skeptobot - Is for you!!
  • MashalotMashalot Registered User regular
    edited April 2007
    The "Macbook G4" was refered to commonly as an "iBook".

    It uses a standard IDE/ATA connection, so that's the kind of enclosure you want.
    Or Powerbook, of either titanium or aluminum varieties.

    Mine's an old Titanium powerbook and due to a design flaw the screen hinges fuck the screen cabling over time. Mine flickers but hasn't totally died, I have it hooked up to a CRT anyway. The battery no longer holds a charge, the cd drive barely reads anything, it's been dropped and has a crack across the casing, etc. etc.

    The 12" aluminum Powerbook HDs tend to die due to... poor ventilation or some bullshit?

    Like everyone's said you should be able to get a hard drive FW / USB enclosure.

    Mashalot on
Sign In or Register to comment.