Can anybody tell me about old Macintosh hard drives?

A friend of mine has an old (from 2001 - 2002) Macintosh desktop computer - dead. I haven't seen it yet, and she doesn't remember the model. (She has to dig it out of a closet.)

I'm a PC guy: Mostly Linux. I've never opened up a Mac before.

Before I offer to try to recover her pictures and files, can anyone advise me regarding what I'm going to find inside? Will the hard drive use a familiar PATA/IDE or SATA interface, or am I going to find something else (SCSI, perhaps?)

What kind of file system will a Mac of that era use? Surely it won't be FAT32, or NTFS. Is it some kind of Apple proprietary format, or do they use something my Linux machines can read?

I just don't want to bite off more than I can chew.

inclusive_disjunction2013-05-04T17:33:53Z

Favorite Answer

1. It would most likely have a PATA drive; SATA didn't come out until 2003, ad the Mac desktops of that age range don't have a built-i SCSI controller.

2. The file system would likely be HFS+. These can be read from Linux.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HFS_Plus#Linux

beat2016-12-01T03:36:19Z

a pal of mine had subject looking a mac nicely matched exterior force, yet I even have had very very sturdy success with any of the easy-tech exterior drives. sure verify they're USB 2.0, any element slower would be ridiculously slow, and noticeably much unusable. I appeared at some firewire drives on account that they're loopy speedy, yet they're too expensive, and those artwork high quality, and artwork good out of the field. Now what no person else asked yet i visit is that in case you have an intel mac, and what OS you're employing. I you're employing Leopard you will have no issues by any capacity, while you're employing Tiger often ok too, yet once you're suing Panther, you in all hazard basically have a USB a million.a million bus, and whether you get a 2.0 exterior force it is going to likely be ineffective canines slow. in case you have an older powerpc working jaguar or perhaps Panther, you will would desire to get a firewire force, reason like I mentioned earlier USB a million.a million is in simple terms too slow. So we could over over this one greater time: in case you have an intel mac, and USB 2.0 bypass with the easy-tech exterior force, I own 3 500 gig drives, and that they have got been marvelous. in case you have Mac OS Leopard, or Tiger and USB 2.0, the easy-tech drives would desire to be high quality. in case you basically have a capacity-laptop, and are employing Panther or Jaguar, you will desire to get a firewire force, on account that USB would be too slow for you. finally, in case you pick to apply the easy tech drives with time gadget you would be able to desire to reformat them for the mac, and be sure you regulate the grasp boot record(MBR) so time gadget will see the force as an accessible backup force otherwise time gadget won't run. sturdy success!

Fast 1991Turbo Syclone2013-05-05T05:45:22Z

Don't know much on this area.