Transferring Files from OS X to OS 9.2.2

[bjorkj02]

Hello - I have an Apple PowerBook G3 "Lombard" (Bronze Keyboard) running OS 9.2.2, and a more recent (circa 2012) MacBook Pro running OS X 10.14.

Now, I have some audio files on the MacBook Pro that I need to transfer to my old PowerBook. Since these are .WAV files, and many of them, I need an option that will work with files like this.

I should note that I've scoured the Internet for a while and found some options, but the posts are either are too briefly explained or too dated for (perhaps) my MacBook, or are talking about going from the old to the new computer ....

It seems like my best options are either to put the PowerBook in Target Disk Mode and connect (if I can find a cable that will work between the two machines), or to connect via the Ethernet ports on both these machines.

But I'm not sure which would be better, and then what the receommended process is for either scenario (particularly if it's the Etherenet option).

My head is spinning a bit right now with all the info., so any help or guidance will be much appreciated!

- Jim

[V2EX]

The easiest way is to start a web server on the OS X machine. You can install nginx/apache with homebrew or use this free app from Icon Factory:

https://iconfactory.com/worldwideweb/

After you have the web server up and running, publish your files from the OS X machine, and your other devices can access it by typing the web server IP address in a browser.

[ssp3]

I've described different approach using Hotline Client / Server here:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,6643.msg49823.html#msg49823

You can convert WAV files to sd2 or AIFF with the converter of your choice in OSX and then transfer them to OS9 machine. Make sure the converter can create resource forks for those files, especially sd2, since all the information about sample rate, bit depth, channel numbers etc. is stored there.
Or, you can transfer WAV files to OS9 and convert them to any of the Mac formats there. Barbabatch was the preferred tool for the complicated conversions back then, but simpler solutions probably existed too.

[GaryN]

It seems like my best options are either to put the PowerBook in Target Disk Mode and connect (if I can find a cable that will work between the two machines), or to connect via the Ethernet ports on both these machines.

There were TWO "Bronze Keyboard" Powerbooks. The Lombard which did NOT have Firewire and the Pismo which DID.
If you have FW ports then the easiest by far is Target Disk mode with a single cable.
If you actually have the older Lombard, then:

You plug the PB into your router with an Ethernet cable.
The router will assign an IP address to it.
On the MBP, Go "Connect to Server" (⌘K) and enter the PB's IP.
You can then mount the PB HDD and simply drag the tracks over to it.

Note that this is a one-way deal. You can both drag TO and fetch FROM the PB with the MBP but not at all from/to the MBP from the PB.
That's because OS 9 won't recognize the HDD on the MBP using later OS's with APFS file systems.

BTW, IMO we really need AI just to keep track of all the damn Abbr's these days IYKWIM

MTFBWY……

EOM

[ssp3]

If you let the modern OSX touch the OS9 drive over FireWire or USB (but not over network), your drive will have B-Tree errors and no utility will be able to repair it. It has been documented here numerous times. Here's the post by FBz:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,6070.msg45296.html#msg45296

Been there, done that. Now I have "don't connect to OSX" stickers on all my OS9 swappable SSD drives that I use for testing.
For quick file transfers I have one SSD that is sacrificed for such tasks. Knowing that there will be errors, I do not try to repair it, but re-initialize it on a regular basis instead.

[S. Pupp]

I’d use a USB flash drive.  It will be slow transferring to the PowerBook, but is easy, and something you probably already have.

[V.Yakob]

I should note that I've scoured the Internet for a while and found some options, but the posts are either are too briefly explained or too dated for (perhaps) my MacBook, or are talking about going from the old to the new computer ....

Some time ago, I prepared a manual detailing several options for transferring files over the network on Mac OS 9 with modern macOS.
Try it, it works. I use it myself all the time.

[GaryN]

If you let the modern OSX touch the OS9 drive over FireWire or USB (but not over network), your drive will have B-Tree errors and no utility will be able to repair it. It has been documented here numerous times. Here's the post by FBz:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,6070.msg45296.html#msg45296

Been there, done that. Now I have "don't connect to OSX" stickers on all my OS9 swappable SSD drives that I use for testing.
For quick file transfers I have one SSD that is sacrificed for such tasks. Knowing that there will be errors, I do not try to repair it, but re-initialize it on a regular basis instead.

Just for the record, the "numerous posts and warnings" on the Forum were / are mostly from me.
While I give you props for going so far as to create warning stickers (!) you've confused the point.

Keeping OSX and OS9 partitions separated is safe sex when you have the two OS's being addressed by OSX on the same machine.
OSX "sees" all drives connected via ATA, USB and Firewire at boot as belonging to itself. Connecting to a different machine via Firewire is not seen as an owned drive.
Furthermore, the actual file directory on the volume is no different in either OS. They're both HFS+ filesystems and the directory is the same. That's why you can see the files on a target disk from a different machine… you're reading the existing directory.
Connecting to a machine in Target Disk mode does not write a "special" OSX directory on the target or even a "OSX was here" message.
It is assumed the drive is temporary because it's in a different machine with a different MAP address.

THAT SAID:

As I have explained before, the real directory garbage that causes B-Tree errors is caused by allowing OSX's Spotlight and/or Time Machine to index the OS9 volume. To OS9, Spotlight is like Sherlock on steroids in a foreign language. That's when the stuff like a zillion keywords gets written that confuses OS9. It sees the OSX stuff as corruption because it never heard of OSX and anything it doesn't recognize, it tries to fix. You boot OS9 and it immediately launches Disk First Aid and attacks the "garbage". When you next boot OSX, is sees the "fixed" stuff as corruption as well and the battle is on - eventually one of them loses, usually OS9.

Locking Spotlight (and TM if you're running Leopard) out of the OS9 volume completely eliminates the issue.

I run my MDD every day with 10.5.8 and 9.2.2 happily living as next door neighbors on different volumes without any problems.
I also have no issue at all connecting to either 10.5, 9.2.2, or both on the MDD over Ethernet from my Catalina-running MacBook Pro.
So I have the two machines and three OS's on a KVM switch with one keyboard and mouse and it all acts almost as one entity.

NSR
(No stickers required)

[DieHard]

You guys know I love to chime in and repeat the obvious with no extra merritt to what was already said...

For quick file transfers I have one SSD that is sacrificed for such tasks. Knowing that there will be errors, I do not try to repair it, but re-initialize it on a regular basis instead.

I am laughing since I also have 2 of these around with the appropriate brother labels attached that say "FW Transfer Drive, No imp data" and yes, they get regularly re-inititalized.

I run my MDD every day with 10.5.8 and 9.2.2 happily living as next door neighbors on different volumes without any problems.
I also have no issue at all connecting to either 10.5, 9.2.2, or both on the MDD over Ethernet from my Catalina-running MacBook Pro.
So I have the two machines and three OS's on a KVM switch with one keyboard and mouse and it all acts almost as one entity.

Show-off

Ok, so I'll agree with Gary, as I am a yes man... I would consider the best method is... with a small mod

You plug the PB into your router with an Ethernet cable.
The router will assign an IP address to it.
On the MBP, Go "Connect to Server" (⌘K) and enter the PB's IP.
You can then mount the PB HDD and simply drag the tracks over to it.

I would give the PB a fixed local IP address and put a sticker on it.... we love stickers... like 192.168.1.10 or whatever matches your IP scheme, this way the IP address will never change if the router decides to issue another address.  In this manner, you can always do a reliable quick connection to the PB, your Mojave machine will always remember the last "connect to server" address and this method will never have you worrying about betree, spotlight and other issues.  Totally safe and easy

[GaryN]

Show-off

[bjorkj02]

First, thanks to everyone for the comments. This really is a knowledgeable and helpful community. And BTW I *do* have the Lombard edition, so no Firewire ports here.

In principle, I'm intrigued by GaryN's suggestion (w/ DieHard's mod), though the part about mounting the PB's HDD sounds like it might be something I don't know how to do. And since I'm not really a power user, there might be other facets of this too that could be confusing...

So to begin with, I decided to try S. Pupp's suggestion about using a USB Flash Drive. I first popped it in the PB and formatted it with the standard OS 9 option.  However, when I insert the drive into my MBP, it only gives me read access. That is, I can open the drive and see contents, but cannot drag any files into it.

So I tried formatting this drive in the MBP using "MS-DOS (FAT)" and "GUID Partition Map" (Note: I had to do this from another MBP running Monterey). And afterwards, the Mojave MBP can read this drive. But unfortunately the PB still doesn't recognize it.

So I'm not sure how to format this drive so both my Mojave MBP and the 9.2.2 PowerBook will both read it *and* allow me read/write permissions??

Thanks for any further advice,
Jim

[ssp3]

Connecting to a different machine via Firewire is not seen as an owned drive.
Furthermore, the actual file directory on the volume is no different in either OS. They're both HFS+ filesystems and the directory is the same. That's why you can see the files on a target disk from a different machine… you're reading the existing directory.
Connecting to a machine in Target Disk mode does not write a "special" OSX directory on the target or even a "OSX was here" message.
It is assumed the drive is temporary because it's in a different machine with a different MAP address.

Since I have the 667MHz PowerBook G4 on the table with the top cover off, which makes swapping mSATA drives on an adapter a breeze, lets conduct the two tests.

1. Moving "virgin", empty external FW drive from OS9 to modern-ish OSX (Yosemite) and back.
2. Connecting PB G4 with "virgin", empty, OS9 initialized internal drive in Target Mode to MBP2011 running Yosemite and examining the same drive in OS9 afterwards.

* Both tests produced the same result, I will report only on latter.

At first, to clear it upfront:
* Spotlight is completely yanked from all my OSX machines. Parts of it are deleted, remaining Agents and Deamons disabled and unloaded. (I use different search tool in place of it).
* Many other Agents and Deamons are also disabled and unloaded with the help of LaunchControl.app
* I've never ever used Time Machine. It is deactivated. (CCC is the tool for the job).

The test.
1. Mount mSATA drive on mSATA->SATA adapter, plug it into Freecom external FW dock and connect it to OSX machine.
2. Write all zeroes to first ~30MB on the drive with the help of iBored app to make sure that no remains of any kind of partition table etc. from any OS are left on the drive and that it will appear as "unformatted" to any OS.
3. Mount the unformatted mSATA drive on mSATA->ATA 44 adapter inside the PB G4.
4. Plug another, OS9 bootable 2.5" SATA drive into external FW dock, power up the PB G4 and boot from that external FW drive.
5. In OS9 initialize the PB G4's internal drive on ATA bus with Drive Setup 1.9.2.
6. Done!

In OS9.2.2 the drive is shown as empty (0 items), but lets examine the invisible files with Norton's Fast Find, prior to allowing the OSX to see this drive.
OK, nothing unusual here.




Shut down the PB G4, power it up in Target Mode and connect it using FireWire to MBP2011 running Yosemite.
Lets check what the Disk Utility sees. Yes, everything looks normal. All those partitions are various OS9 ATA/SCSI/FW drivers.




Now, lets take a look at invisible files on the same drive with OSX tools. Whaaaat? What's that? Some of that stuff wasn't there when we checked the invisible files in OS9 in prior step.




OK, lets boot the PB G4 back to OS9 and check the invisible files again. Bang! A couple of new items.




Now, if we try to run DiskWarrior, we get this.




What about Norton Disk Doctor?




Norton sometimes succeeds with the repairs, sometimes not, but, in any case, DiskWarrior will always say that the drive is damaged.

Draw you own conclusions. 

EDIT.

DiskWarrior 2.1 is not compatible with disks that have Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or later installed.
It is also not compatible with any disk that has been attached to a Mac running Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

https://www.alsoft.com/support-diskwarrior-21-earlier

----
https://techblog.willshouse.com/2011/05/05/what-is-fseventsd/
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/10/mac-os-x-10-5/7/

[GaryN]

First, thanks to everyone for the comments. This really is a knowledgeable and helpful community. And BTW I *do* have the Lombard edition, so no Firewire ports here.

Right. You mentioned Target Disk mode in your 1st post and that only works over Firewire so I had to ask.

So I tried formatting this drive in the MBP using "MS-DOS (FAT)" and "GUID Partition Map" (Note: I had to do this from another MBP running Monterey). And afterwards, the Mojave MBP can read this drive. But unfortunately the PB still doesn't recognize it.
So I'm not sure how to format this drive so both my Mojave MBP and the 9.2.2 PowerBook will both read it *and* allow me read/write permissions??

Hmmm… I'll have to take ownership of some of your confusion. I wrote a long, complex lecture there and I screwed the pooch in one respect:

All original Mac filesystems from - I'm not certain here - OS4? or definitely OS6 thru OS 10.12 Sierra use HFS or HFS+. HFS+ adds journaling for reliability but it's the same and those really old systems don't matter anyway 'cause we're talking about OS9.
Note I said 10.12 NOT 10.13 Mojave which is when the new APFS system was introduced…and that's you baby.

There were two reasons for changing to APFS:
1) Filesystem optimization for 64-bit operation and the ever-larger files created today.
2) It's f&%kin' Apple we're talking about here. They're always afraid if they don't keep zig-zagging fast enough, they'll lose the ability to keep that great big ecosystem fence around all the hardware…

That is why I recommended and explained that connecting over your LAN (router) via Ethernet is the best way.
No pre-Sierra Mac OS can see, let alone open and/or read anything on a APFS volume… HOWEVER
Sierra and later OS's can read and write TO older HFS+ volumes.
When you drag something from your Sierra drive to the older one, Sierra kindly "down"converts the file header to HFS+ so it remains usable on the older system.
When you drag something from the older drive to Sierra, it's "up"converted to APFS

This is not unlike them "generously" providing OS9 Classic for a few minutes to ease the pain of the OSX transition.
I suspect (and I'll call this a warning) that it's only a matter of time and probably a short time before they remove even this small convenience without warning and the only way to communicate with HFS-running machines will be with an "bridge" machine of the Ventura-ish vintage to act as an intermediary. Why? They say, "Why Not? We own this world and we can do whatever the f#&k we want."

So…………

So I tried formatting this drive in the MBP using "MS-DOS (FAT)" and "GUID Partition Map" (Note: I had to do this from another MBP running Monterey). And afterwards, the Mojave MBP can read this drive. But unfortunately the PB still doesn't recognize it

You had to do it in Monterey. HA! Same Apple logic. They removed that choice in Sierra because you shouldn't "need" it. It's Apple's world.
The PB running OS9 can't recognize MS-DOS Fat OR Skinny so that's out.

Again: Connect the two over Ethernet! Unless you're hitting the Internet using your iPhone as a hotspot or something, you must have a router. Both the PB and your 2012 MBP have Ethernet jacks. Two cables and you're done. The only limitation will be as I described: You'll have to do all transferring of files TO or FROM the PB using the MBP.

[GaryN]

Since I have the 667MHz PowerBook G4 on the table with the top cover off, which makes swapping mSATA drives on an adapter a breeze, lets conduct the two tests.

Wow… I just wrote another loong post to bjorkj02 above and looking at your last one now is giving me a headache.
I'll get back to it tomorrow because there's just too much…
I'll just suggest you're "not seeing the forest for the trees." No, more like "down the rabbit hole so far you can't tell which way is up."
No offense intended man, I'm just really tired.

[joevt]

Now, lets take a look at invisible files on the same drive with OSX tools. Whaaaat? What's that? Some of that stuff wasn't there when we checked the invisible files in OS9 in prior step.

OK, lets boot the PB G4 back to OS9 and check the invisible files again. Bang! A couple of new items.

Now, if we try to run DiskWarrior, we get this.

What about Norton Disk Doctor?

Norton sometimes succeeds with the repairs, sometimes not, but, in any case, DiskWarrior will always say that the drive is damaged.

Draw you own conclusions. 

But those are third party OS 9 utilities that don't know about OS X. Do the issues they find actually cause problems in OS 9? What about Apple utilities for OS 9 and OS X? Or third party OS X utilities (such as the latest version of DiskWarrior)?

[IIO]

When you drag something from your Sierra drive to the older one, Sierra kindly "down"converts the file header to HFS+ so it remains usable on the older system.

not sure why people always think using different disk formats would affect the files themselves. the fileheader is changed by the finder application - just like an ftp or p2p client/server might do that for you depending on the OS and disc scheme.

and as always, it seems one can save a lot of work by using HFS+ on the 10.13 machine - and by not using any repair programs unless required.


(did i yet mention that journalling and spotlight indexing is devil stuff?)

[S. Pupp]

So to begin with, I decided to try S. Pupp's suggestion about using a USB Flash Drive. I first popped it in the PB and formatted it with the standard OS 9 option.  However, when I insert the drive into my MBP, it only gives me read access. That is, I can open the drive and see contents, but cannot drag any files into it.

When you format a disk in OS9, do NOT select "Macintosh OS."  Select "Macintosh OS Extended."  I just confirmed with a 32GB USB2 flash drive formatted on my PowerBook G3 Lombard that this works for read/write with Mac OSX Ventura (current version) on my MacBook Pro 2017.

[ssp3]

and as always, it seems one can save a lot of work by using HFS+ on the 10.13 machine - and by not using any repair programs unless required.

Tell that to a novice user or windows convert and you will get a blank stare 

[DieHard]

When you format a disk in OS9, do NOT select "Macintosh OS."  Select "Macintosh OS Extended."  I just confirmed with a 32GB USB2 flash drive formatted on my PowerBook G3 Lombard that this works for read/write with Mac OSX Ventura (current version) on my MacBook Pro 2017.

Wow... that seems almost too good to be true, write files to it and them make sure you can transfer and write from each unit; if so, this is obviously the simplest route although UBS 1.1 in OS 9 is painfully slow, much slower than ethernet

Lastly, since I'm in an evil mood, some would tell you to build a separate NAS.... read here to really turn the muddy waters to black...
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,2591.msg50111.html#msg50111

[bjorkj02]

Okay, I just tried S. Pupp's suggestion to format my USB drive with "Macintosh OS Extended" on OS9 ...  And it works!

I can read and write files to that drive on my Mojave *and* Monterrey MBPs with no problems. And since these WAVs in total are only ~ 20 MB, even the transfer to the Lombard PB was very quick.

So it does almost seem too good (or easy) to be true, but that appears to be the answer in this case 

Thanks again to everyone for the advice and input,
Jim