 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Mac Forum / General / General / May 2008Problem with file types on OS9 after passing through OSX
Hi, all! I believe this is the right group for this problem, but if you disagree I'd appreciate a pointer to the right group. I have a reasonable amount of experience with OSX, and I'm quite good with PCs running Windows, but I have had very little experience with OS9 until recently. But there's a research lab I support that uses OS9 and has been running into the following problem. Please bear with me, it's a complicated situation and I'll try to explain it as clearly as I can. Cast of characters: OldMac1 and OldMac2, both running OS9 NewMac, running OSX OldMac1 was the main computer in this lab until recently, when it died. All the data on it was backed up regularly to a firewire external HD. (This ext HD only has firewire, no USB or any other way of connecting to it.) When OldMac1 died, the lab's boss looked around and found OldMac2 to put in its place. However, OldMac2 doesn't have firewire (it's an old- style iMac). So they hooked up the firewire drive to NewMac in the lab's boss's office, used a remote connection to reach OldMac2, and copied some of the files from the firewire drive to OldMac2 via NewMac. The problem is, when the files show up on OldMac2 they've lost their file type info, so OldMac2 doesn't know what program to open the file with. I have found a short-term fix (use a utility like FileBuddy or FileTyper to edit the file type info) but that isn't a good solution for the long term. Does anyone know how I can get the files from the firewire ext HD to OldMac2 without losing the file type info in the first place? Any help will be greatly appreciated. (And yes, we have tried to talk them into upgrading to OSX for the lab, but they won't do it.) Thanks, Liza In article <0da7269e-f5ec-4a40-81c7-dae47ad090c9@i76g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, > Does anyone know how I can get the files from the firewire ext HD to > OldMac2 without losing the file type info in the first place? Any > help will be greatly appreciated. > > (And yes, we have tried to talk them into upgrading to OSX for the > lab, but they won't do it.) ------ Guessing here but OS9 and OSX maintain file types differently. You may have lost the "resource fork" which is/was a section of the file that told OS9 what flie type it was and what program was use to open it. The resource fork does what the extension name (.doc, .txt, .ppt, .pdf) does on a PC under Windows. You may benefit from a utility called "FileTyper" It is supposed to run on OS 8.6 through OS 9.xx (with Carbon Lib 1.3 or higher) and up through OSX 10.x http://www.frederikseiffert.de/filetype/ This utility comes pre-programmed with a number of file types but you can easily establish additional filetypes as necessary. Then all you need to do is drag the un-typed applications onto the active window to mass-change the filetypes to what ever is selected at the time. While not a quick fix or an 'on-the-fly' fix, it will offer you mass conversion via drag and drop type functions. > You may have lost the "resource fork" which is/was a section of the > file that told OS9 what flie type it was and what program was use to > open it. The resource fork does what the extension name (.doc, .txt, > .ppt, .pdf) does on a PC under Windows. This is a common mistake, but no, the HFS+ type and creator codes are *not* stored in the resource fork. Cheers, Chris > In article > <0da7269e-f5ec-4a40-81c7-dae47ad090c9@i76g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > open it. The resource fork does what the extension name (.doc, .txt, > .ppt, .pdf) does on a PC under Windows. Nope. Type and creator code (and other stuff) are stored as part of the directory entry. At least they are on MFS/HFS/HFS+. They're stored in ancillary metadata files on other file systems. The resource fork contains ancillary and discrete chunks of information related to the actual file format (and in some cases there is no data fork). My guess about the OP's problem is that the external drive to which things had been backed up was formatted with FAT. In the move to OS X Apple changed the nature/location of that ancillary data and, for some reason(s) that I've never been able to fathom, didn't include even read support for FAT volumes that had been used on a pre-X Mac. As it happens, the resource fork suffers the same fate, so ultimately FAT disks are a completely unreliable way to move data between Mac OS X and prior versions. I'd say the best bet is to crack open the FW case and move the drive into a new case that has a USB port. Be warned it'll be slow, though; you'll be at USB 1 speeds.  Signature"Harry?" Ron's voice was a mere whisper. "Do you smell something ... burning?" - Harry Potter and the Odor of the Phoenix Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. The lab's boss ended up coming up with a solution herself! I was totally overlooking the fact that NewMac could boot to Classic. She suggested booting to Classic and using NewMacClassic to copy the files from the ext HD to OldMac2. I gave it a shot and it worked! I'm relieved, I was afraid this was going to turn into one of those issues that drag on and on. And Gregory, you're right about the ext HD being FAT (in this case, FAT32). I didn't know that could make a difference for this, so thanks for the info! |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.