The second you said. ok.. well i bought a $5 ca42 from a local guy (hi-etech in brooklyn).. radio shack had the tiny connectors.. fixed the drive on the first attempt the only info i might be able to add to all of this stuff is a terminal app to use with OS X.. (others have said z term but i didn't want to install rosetta on the intels to get it to run) i found goSerial which for the most part, looks the same (well, it's prettier ) and will let you follow the same exact instructions as the hyperterminal tuts. http://www.furrysoft.de/?page=goserial seagate, bsy, apple, mac, macintosh, osx, os x, leopard, snow leopard