PowerBook - 12" Powerbook Died - Mac-Forums.com

endellion · 02-23-2009, 07:13 PM

I stupidly used the default backup program on my old 12" Powerbook G4 running OsX 10.4. (I'm a system admin and really did know better

, but it was convenient.) I've succeeded in mounting the sparse images from the backup, but I've since learned that they are all encrypted and tied to the old user account.

The hard drive is now the only part of the old laptop that is still functional. I have a Asus EeePC 1000 (replacement for the Powerbook (and Apple FYI if any of you are reading this, some of us do not want anything larger than 12" and consider that too big!)) The EeePC has a Intel Atom 1.6 ghz processor. I also have a desktop with a Pentium 4 (northwood chipset) and a server which uses an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (brisbane energy efficient). I also have set of IDE to SATA cables for the powerbook hard drive. (All of these machines are Linux except the EeePC which is dual boot XP home and Linux.)
Here's the crazy theory.... If I take the hard drive from the powerbook and plug it into one of these machines, can I use it to run OsX and retrieve my data? (I have about 150 gigs that were stored in the backup system separate from the main hard drive and I really need those.)
Has anyone tried this or have any other ideas?
Thanks in advance!

ADKhikerVW · 02-24-2009, 12:03 AM

Nope, OS X will not run on anything other than a Mac.

You can get some software which allows you to access HFS+ drives, and put the PowerBook drive in an external enclosure. I'm not sure about Linux, but in Windows you can use MacDrive or the free HFSexplorer. You should be able to get your files that way.

endellion · 02-24-2009, 01:55 AM

HFS+ support is part of a standard linux install. The issue isn't that I can't access the drive. The issue is all those backup documents that don't exist on the drive and must be accessed through mac software.
As for the OSX not running on anything other than a Mac... I've seen it running on other machines, including an Asus EeePC. I know there were some hacks involved in getting it to work, but it does work.
I'm sort of hoping for something that will let me access the .sparseimage backups most likely through Windows. NIX style permissions on the .sparseimage are the problem. Chmod and chown do not fix the problem.