HT1661 Problems mounting Imac in target disk mode on retina laptop with a solid state drive as host

I'm trying to use an Imac in target disk mode to copy files from it to a new retina display laptop with a solid state drive, but the target drive will not mount even tho it does start in target disk mode. I have all the proper firewire connection. The Imac will not respond for more than a few minutes before crashing when started from its own system. I would like to salvage a few files from it before I perform a clean install of the system.
Anyone has any idea why it wont mount in Target mode onto the retina laptop? Help!
Thanks in advance. :-)

Mac OS X doesn't offer a "clean install" option.
I'm assuming your target Mac is running 10.6?
And you setup the target Mac without adding a Firewire cable until after the Firewire logo appears on the screen?

Similar Messages

Can Apple replace iMac 24" drive with a solid state drive?

Can Apple replace my early 2009 iMac 24" drive with a solid state drive?

An Apple Store will most likely refer you to a local Apple Authorized Service Provider for that type of work.
Go to > Support > Find an AASP > click the Service Box > enter your Zip code and call some of those AASP's to see which one's do that type of upgrade.

IMac in Target Disk mode won't mount on Mac Pro via Firewire

My iMac (intel Core 2 Duo) won't start up - it has the question mark in a folder icon.
I can't find the Apple Snow Leopard disk, so I've started it in Target Disk mode, connected it to my Mac Pro, but it doesn't mount on the Mac Pro even though it appears in System Profiler on the Mac Pro.
Both running 10.6.8
Can I force it to mount? I have tried front & back firewire ports and restarted several times to no avail.
I'm hoping to repair the iMac disk using Disk Utility or Diskwarrior on the Mac Pro, but need it to mount first.
Any ideas? Thanks.

I want to copy everything off the iMac before re-installing Snow Leopard & starting again.
I do not have a backup of the computer (I've had a backup hard drive on order for 7 weeks that has been delayed due to the shortages...) I am aware that this is very stupid of me.
The disk is obviously in very bad shape as Disk Utility can't do anything with it.
Diskwarrior v4.2 on a DVD will make a 'Preview' of a directory of it, but will not 'Replace' the directory as the disk is damaged.
1. Does anyone know how to make a startup DVD of Diskwarrior v4.4 (I have the v4.4 update but can't find out how to make a new startup DVD using the old v4.2 DVD and the software v4.4 update) and I think Alsoft must now be on holiday as they're not answering... (I would like to use v4.4 as it should be more capable).
2. Assuming I can get Diskwarrior (hopefully on a new v4.4 DVD) to make a 'Preview' again of the iMac directory, how do I copy everying off the computer? My only guess is to connect my Mac Pro in target mode to the iMac. Will the Mac Pro disk show up in the 'Preview' directory & therefore allow me to copy all of it's contents across to the target mode disk?
3. Assuming all the above works, is there a best way to copy all of the iMac contents to a folder in the Mac Pro? i.e. is there a way of Carbon Copying it so that after wiping the disk I can simply copy it all back? Or is it all too late for that
THANK YOU very much for any help.

Startup problem after use in target disk mode with a PC. Ideas?

I used my Mac 10.4 in traget disk mode. Data transfers between Mac and PC worked fine (via Macdrive 6). After disconnecting and trying to boot normally, Mac doesn't recognize internal volume. It flashes the question mark.
Tried to repair disk via install DVD - disk utility found no problems.
Reapired permissons.
Reset PRAM and NVRAM.
Tried Startup utility - found the internal volume and even after selecting it for startup, I still get the flashing question mark.
Apple hardware test found no problems.
Archive and reinstall is not allowed.
Data can still be accessed fine via target disk mode.
Any ideas how to reinitialize or reset the startup volume?
Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hello,
You need to put the Tiger Install Disc in the 2011 iMac, boot the 2011 uMac into Target mode...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
Boot the G4 holding the Option or alt key, hopefully the Install Disc in the 2011 iMac will show as a boot choice.
We just want to use the 2011 iMac as a big expensive FW Optical drive, it cannot be installed osing the 2011 iMac itself.

Can I install FROM a working iMac TO an iMac in Target Disk Mode?

Hi.
I have a distressed iMac - it's in Target Disk Mode (the Firewire logo is on its screen), and it's hooked up to another iMac. I can see and navigate to the distressed Mac's hard drive via the good one. Can I insert the SL install disk on the good mac and install it on the bad one? I've tried the other way...but the distressed iMac stalls out when booting the install disk visa-versa.
The distressed iMac's internal optical drive is dead, and for some reason it WILL NOT recognized an external firewire/usb optical drive.
Thanks.

Sure, the working mac should see the other one as a firewire connected hard drive, nothing more - so long as the working one is an intel, and the target drive is partitioned suitably; 10.6 ought to install no problem.

Why can't Disk Utility wipe my old iMac in Target Disk Mode?

I want to donate my old iMac G3 with all my personal data removed.
As all my old start up disks are long gone I went online and followed advice to wipe it remotely. I connected the G3 via FireWire to my 15" MacBook Pro (late 2008, running OSX Lion 10.7.5) and restarted the G3 in Target Disk Mode. I opened Disk Utility, selected the drive (not the iMac partition), selected Erase, renamed the drive and chosen the 7 pass option. And waited...
After leaving it overnight, I awoke to find it was still preparing. I then Skipped that stage (it gave me the option) and left it for 24 hours. It was still skipping, so I had to Force Quit Disk Utility. The G3 is perfectly fine, and Disk Utility works as I just erased a memory stick as a test.
What's going on?

You need to do the following:
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Only use a single-pass to zero the data. Any more is overkill and will take many hours to complete.

Target disk mode mounts multiple copies of target disk

I'm trying to help a friend who has a problem with her MacBook. We need to copy of her files (guess what, no backup...) before it goes in for repair - it takes the MB about an hour to boot, which is obviously not good. I can mount it via Target Disk mode and briefly see the top-level directory, but then it all goes a bit haywire - the TD seems to unmount suddenly and then a new copy mounts. On the desktop I now have 3 copies of the TD, but in a Finder list window that was already open, it's showing no less than 9 copies!
I cannot eject any of the copies because they are "in use" according to my machine.
I have the feeling that this may be unresolvable, but I thought I'd throw it out there in case one of you gurus has any ideas!

Single-user mode got me further along the track, but then I found I was in a little over my head and suggested she contact her uni's IT department for assistance. I have closed this question.

Mac shuts down in target disk mode

So I finally replaced my old iMac G4 with a shiny new MacBook Pro. But I've run into problems while attempting to copy user data over during the setup assistant process. I connect the two computers using a firewire cable. I put the old iMac into target disk mode. The PowerBook recognizes all my settings and lets me choose what to copy over. But every time the MacBook Pro starts copying data from the old iMac, the old iMac shuts down. Any ideas?

Don't quite know. Anything in Apple doc.#58583 help?
Perhaps you are using the wrong procedure?
 DALE

Boot up from target disk mode doesn't work. (Why?)

I have a 2010 Macbook Pro, and a 2013 iMac. I connected the Macbook pro with the firewire cable to the iMac, and enabled target disk mode on the laptop. (It is successful because I see the hard drive appear on the iMac desktop.
I restart the iMac and hold 'option' to show the hard drive list, and sure enough the Mac Book Pro hard drive appears. I select it, and this lovely icon greets me.
From this point, I have no idea what to do.
Would you happen to know why it doesn't work and/or how to fix it?

I am able to do that... this is not the problem.
I have seen people boot up from the hard drive using target disk mode. When I try to do it, it doesn't work. Does this feature still exist?

Why MBP heats when working in target disk mode?

I connect my MBP to iMac using target disk mode through Thunderbolt interface, close the lid and work on iMac booted from MBP's disk. My understanding is that in this mode MBP should consume very little energy because CPU and GPU are mostly inactive. But I can feel that MBP actually heats up considerably. It not critically hot, but still hotter than I would expect. Can someone explain why this happens?

For FireWire Target Disk Mode, if there are two drives connected to the same IDE bus, I believe only the one that is set as Master is accessible from the "other" computer. So it's possible that your optical drive is Master and hard drive is Slave, in your config.
Copying the files to the external drive, while the iMac G4 is still bootable, was a good move.
Once the data is safe, you might try the following (assuming you are able to continue starting up that iMac). Download a cloning utility, such as Carbon Copy Cloner
http://www.bombich.com/
Clone the internal drive volume to a FireWire external drive volume. Set System Preferences Startup Disk pane to start up from the clone on the FireWire drive, and try to start up from the clone. While started up from the FireWire drive, you can run Disk Utility on the internal drive. Maybe you can do a Repair Disk successfully.
You can also use Disk Utility to completely erase the internal drive. Be sure to select the internal DRIVE (not the volume indented under the drive) in the sidebar, then go to the Erase tab. Doing an erase in this way will re-partition and reformat the hard drive. That may get rid of your data corruption problem.
Then, clone the clone back to the internal drive, and try to start up from it. If there was an underlying hardware problem on the hard drive, this will not fix it. But if it was just data corruption at the volume level, that iMac G4 may still have some life left.

MacBook in target disk mode shows incorrect disk size

My 80 GB hard drive in MacBook has gone bad (the filesystem is in inconsistent state). I connected it to an iMac in Target Disk Mode. It shows up (unmounted) but the capacity reported by Disk Utility is 20 GB. Does someone know why is that? Is it due to the corrupt filesystem?
I am afraid that given this situation, if I buy and run DiskWarrior, that too might not be able to see the full disk and fail to repair it. Note that if I boot my MacBook using the Apple CD, the Disk Utility shows the correct disk size.
Thanks.

If you have a disk that is in really, really bad shape to the point that Disk Utility looks at you like a 5 year old that just spilled a glass of apple juice on the kitchen floor, it's time to bring in the big guns.
DiskWarrior.
I love it, I love it. If someone has something bad to say about it, they are lying. If there is a chance that you can get everything back to normal without spending the huge dough to send your drive out to be dismantled in a clean room, DiskWarrior is that chance.
It's worth every single penny.
Let me know if you have other queries.

MBP and target disk mode with PPC desktop

I am thinking about finally jumping to a MBP from a PowerBook.
One of the things I do a lot is hook up my PowerBook in target disk mode to interchange information with my PowerPC desktop.
Any problems with using a MBP in target disk mode with a PPC desktop? If so... what???
Thanks for any feedback, help, cautions.
-- Jim
Powerbook 15 1.67ghz High Res DDR2 Mac OS X (10.4.6) 1.5gb ram, 80gb

We just took the plunge and our MBP is being shipped.
Did you let the Migration Assistant move your applications? I am thinking about whether it is a good idea to migrate Final Cut Studio and any other non-Universal apps, for example, from the PowerBook, then get the Universal upgrades? Or just get the Universal versions and install them?
thanks

Unable to recognize computers via target disk mode

I am trying to transfer files from my iBook G4 to my new intel-based iMac. I have successfully engaged my iBook in target disk mode (i.e. the firewire symbol moving around the screen) but my iMac does not recognize that the iBook is in target disk mode. I have tried adjusting the timing of target disk mode and connecting the firewire cable between the computers but nothing works. I have tried reversing roles and putting the iMac in target disk mode while trying to connect from my iBook G4 but I cannot establish a connection that way either.
I know the firewire ports on both computers function because I am able to connect to other peripherals via firewire. I am going back to the Apple Store today to get a replacement firewire cable just to make sure that isn't the issue. Does anyone have any ideas about what could be causing this issue or how to resolve it?
Both my laptop and iMac are running Mac OS X (10.4.10).
Thanks.
-David

Welcome to Apple Discussions
Have a look at all the other threads on the subject in the link below!
"Target Mode Search"
As you read up on the subject, notice that it is not wise to move software App's from the old system to the new.

No Target Disk Mode shown up

Hi,
When I open System - Preference - Startup Disk, there is no "Target Disk Mode" button as expected. What's going on with my Mac?
OS: 10.10.1(14B25)

That is the problem right there. Target Disk Mode is a hardware setting and is only available when you run OS X natively on your Mac. It is not available to virtual machines.

Migration Assistant, Target Disk Mode and Bluetooth Keyboards

Wanted to migrate my iMac setup to a new MBP last night. Kept trying to start up my iMac in target disk mode and it would only boot normally not in TD. Finally realized that my bluetooth keyboard was the culprit in that it wasn't connected once the iMac shut off for the restart. Thankfully I had a wired keyboard; plugged it in and migration went as advertised. Nowhere (that I could find) in the Migration Asst. prompts does it mention anything about needing a wired keyboard to restart as a TD. Did I miss something basic? If not, shouldn't Apple make mention of this to avoid confusion and frustration?
BTW, the new MBP rocks!

Yes, that tidbit of info is buried in a support article, as is some other Migration Assistant documentation. But it would be far better if the app had its own comprehensive, searchable Help built into it, just like most other apps from Apple. Note that when you launch Migration Assistant, there isn't even a Help menu, nor are there any question mark in purple circle icons in its windows to offer context sensitive help.
Basically, that's what I requested in my feedback to Apple.

HT1661 Problems mounting Imac in target disk mode on retina laptop with a solid state drive as host

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for