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1989 Macintosh Data Retrieval Help

89MacHelp

New member
I am trying to find the right adaptor/system/help that would be able to access this hard drive from a 1989/90 Macintosh. There are some old journals my dad wrote to my brother and I, hoping we can retrieve them somehow. Aware that the data may be unretrievable/corrupted/etc. A friendly Reddit user recommended reaching out to this group and looking for a San Francisco local who may be able to help. Much appreciated!!
 

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Iesca

Well-known member
Hi there! That is a SCSI hard disk drive, and while scsi to usb adapters exist, they're quite expensive these days. To add to the complications, old Quantum drives are known for a problem where these arm bumpers inside get very tacky with age and the drive head refuses to move. You might be better off sending to someone who has a vintage machine they can hook it up to to play with.

EDIT: I'm in LA if that's "local" enough for you! :)
 

volvo242gt

Well-known member
Another option, if you still have access to the LC or IIsi that the hard drive came from, pick up a SCSI zip drive and connect that to the SCSI port. Boot the computer up, then copy the files over to a zip disk in the zip drive. Use a USB zip drive on your MacBook to copy said files to that computer.

If not, then either find someone who has a Mac with a SCSI interface and have them get the files off the drive, or get a B&W G3 or PowerMac G4 with an Adaptec SCSI card installed. If doing the latter, connect the drive to the card, then boot the machine under Mac OS 9 (or 8.5/8.6, etc) using the computer's normal IDE drive. Copy files over, burn to a CD.
 

Johnnya101

Well-known member
Agree with the above. If you don't have a computer and have no interest in doing anything with old Macs, probably easier to send it to someone on here that knows what they are doing.
 

Huxley

Well-known member
I am trying to find the right adaptor/system/help that would be able to access this hard drive from a 1989/90 Macintosh. There are some old journals my dad wrote to my brother and I, hoping we can retrieve them somehow. Aware that the data may be unretrievable/corrupted/etc. A friendly Reddit user recommended reaching out to this group and looking for a San Francisco local who may be able to help. Much appreciated!!
I'm in the East Bay (Alameda) and have a bunch of old Mac gear, and depending on how urgent your project is, I might be able to help give it a try later this summer or fall. With that said, I feel like it would be good to share some honest thoughts to set realistic expectations:
  • Many vintage hard drives are now failed / non-working. There are many reasons that this can happen, but one common one seems to have occurred for a lot of the Quantum LPS drives like yours: they used a rubber bumper inside to cushion the read/write heads, and those rubber bumpers have slowly degraded over the decades, and most of them are now just a blob of sticky goo, which traps the read/write heads in place. This is not a 100% likely thing but it's increasingly common - every Quantum LPS drive in my collection is now non-functional.
  • If the sticky-goo problem has occurred for your drive, it's still possible that data could be recovered. Some clever folks have opened their Quantum drives up to 'unstick' them, which is pretty amazing. However, the very act of opening a hard drive outside of the special conditions of a "clean room" (aka a hermetically sealed, dust-free environment) can itself cause data loss, so it's a very haphazard / last-ditch kind of strategy. I've tried it a couple times in my kitchen, with a ~25% success rate (and the one drive out of the four I tried it with only worked for about an hour before crashing hard)
  • It's also worth noting that if the drive can be brought back to live (even briefly!) and those files get recovered, they will likely be in whatever format of whichever old word processor your dad happened to be using in those days. Converting them to 'plain text' once they're recovered probably won't be a big deal, but it's possible that it could be a non-trivial amount of work, if they are corrupted, or were written in some highly-unusual format, etc.
  • The best-chance-of-success path would honestly be to engage a professional data-recovery company. There are lots of options in this space. Years ago when I worked for Apple (2004-2011) we would generally suggest that customers with data recovery needs set up a free consultation with DriveSavers
With all the above in mind, I'm happy to coordinate a meet-up later this summer / fall (the next couple months are jam-packed with work travel + family stuff for me, so I'm trying to not commit myself too much) if that timeline suits you. There's probably no harm in plugging the drive in and seeing if luck bears out a little longer and we can grab those files - the worst case is that the drive is entirely dead (or the sticky-goo problem has occurred) and you pursue the last option on the bullet list above (a professional data recovery service like DriveSavers).

I know this is a long / detailed response - I hope it's helpful! Feel free to PM me if you want to make a plan to meet up :)

@Huxley runs Retro Roadshow around San Francisco. Not sure if they’re back to doing regular events yet.
We are SO EAGER to get our Retro Roadshow events going again! We've been very cautious about committing to in-person events, both for obvious pandemic reasons, and because our favorite venue went through a change of ownership over the past year. I'm happy to say tha the new owners of The Local Cafe in Alameda are really great people and see the value of hosting our events, so now we're just working on a schedule. More updates to come soon!

:)

Huxley
 

dcr

Well-known member
The best-chance-of-success path would honestly be to engage a professional data-recovery company. There are lots of options in this space. Years ago when I worked for Apple (2004-2011) we would generally suggest that customers with data recovery needs set up a free consultation with DriveSavers
(y)
I have experience with DriveSavers circa 2002. They did excellent work recovering files from a hard drive that disk recovery software at the time couldn't do anything with and I think most, if not all, of the actual files that needed to be rescued were saved. I think the unrecoverable stuff was software and system stuff that was easily replaced from the original install disks. So, if it fits the budget, using them would probably be the best first option.
 

MrFahrenheit

Well-known member
I am trying to find the right adaptor/system/help that would be able to access this hard drive from a 1989/90 Macintosh. There are some old journals my dad wrote to my brother and I, hoping we can retrieve them somehow. Aware that the data may be unretrievable/corrupted/etc. A friendly Reddit user recommended reaching out to this group and looking for a San Francisco local who may be able to help. Much appreciated!!

Glad you found the forum. If the files are extracted and you have no way of opening them, I can convert them for you and email them back to you. I've done that for others in the past.
 
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