Can't boot in target disk mode

I have launched Migration Assistant and attached a 400-800 firewire cable between my new iMac and my PowerMac G4. When I try to restart the G4 in target disk mode (either by holding down the T key or choosing target disk mode in System Preferences), it dies after a few seconds - never mounting.
I have followed the suggestions in the Apple document relating to troubleshooting target disk mode - no other firewire cables attached, keyboard plugged into computer not display, no firmware password required.
I will not use Migration Assistant to move applications, but I do want to move my user account. Any suggestions? Otherwise I will try migrating from the backup hard drive instead.

you can try migrating via ethernet. that does not require rebooting. connect the computers by an ethernet cable and migrate. if that does not want to work either do it via an external drive. you seem to have one. back up the G4 to the external and migrate from that. the backup should be either a bootable clone or a TM backup. you can make a bootable clone using CCCloner, Superduper or the restore tab in disk utility.

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Booting from target disk mode

I have a mid 2012 MacBook Pro on the way with a 500 GB internal HD. My old mid 2007 MBP has a 1T hybrid drive that I would like to install as is in the new machine. Both on latest Mavericks....will the new machine boot up with the 2007 1T hard drive. Can this be tested via booting from target disk mode ?
Thanks

1. Yes.
2. Yes, it can.
(113529)

Mac Mini won't Boot after Target Disk Mode

We just bought a new iMac and used target disk mode via firewire from our older Mac Mini running OSX 10.4 to transfer data. Now when we go to restart the mini, the grey screen appears with apple logo and it seems to try to boot up but after a long time alway just ends up with a blue screen. I don't think I "ejected" the mini properly from the imac after the target disk mode transfer. Could the mini be stuck in target disk mode? I've tried to restart in different modes eg. safe mode, pram by holding down keys on start up but doesnt make a difference at all almost as if the keyboard isn't registering (and its a wired keyboard). Any ideas???
Thanks

Try starting up from the Recovery Partition holding the Option (Alt) key and see if you can Repair your Macintosh HD, as per > OS X: About OS X Recovery

Mac mini won't boot into target disk mode

Hi
I just bought a Mac mini on eBay. I'm not sure of the spec but I think its a G4.
When it arrived I plugged it in and switched on to find the question mark folder appear.
I put in a 10.5 disk but it would not boot from it. [this was a disk I got with another s/h machine though so may not be bootable]
As I could not install from the disk I figured my best bet would be to target disk in and install osx from a powerbook I have here.
However I can't get target disk to work.
The keyboard is definitely working as it allows me to boot into OF and zap the PRAM
I've also tried pressing what I believe to be the SMU button just behind the connector board to the HD and DVD drive but no luck.
Anybody got any ideas as to whats going on?
Cheers

Ok, I can probably get a copy of OSX
The problem is I think the DVD drive is faulty as it wouldn't give me my disk back I tried "eject cd" in OF but it didn't work and I had to open it up with a screw driver and take it out.
If the disk is corrupted is there a way to erase it without putting it in another machine. ie can it be done from OF?
Thanks for your help btw

Won't boot, recognise superdrive or startup in target disk mode

I've been trying to help a friend with his iMac G4 that crashed. Of course he hasn't backed up his hard drive in years. I've searched the forums and have tried several methods to get his machine running or at least recover his data but with no luck.
Here's what happens:
When I turn on his computer I can hear repeated clicking which eventually stops. The screen comes up grey and eventually a flashing icon appears, alternating between a folder with a Finder icon and a folder with a question mark.
Here's what I've tried:
I've tried booting in target disk mode but that doesn't work.
I've tried booting holding down the mouse button but the superdrive tray doesn't open.
I've booted into Open Firmware and typed "eject cd". The system pauses for a long time then gives me the message "can't OPEN the EJECT device".
I've manually opened the superdrive tray, loaded a disc, then booted while holding down the "c" key. I can hear the drive spin, but the computer doesn't boot from the disk. I've tried loading a Tiger DVD, a DiskWarrior CD and an OS 9 CD.
I've tried removing the Airport card and additional RAM.
I've tried resetting the PRAM.
I've tried resetting the PMU.
I've booted into Open Firmware and typed "reset-nvram" then "reset-all".
Nothing has worked. The computer always returns to the flashing Finder/question mark folder.
I'd really appreciate any suggestions on where to go from here.
Thanks!

When you can't boot from any method it usually signals that one of 2 things (maybe both) have failed:
Motherboard
Hard drive - Some hard drive failures lock up the ATA controller so badly that the Mac can't boot from any device.

G4 PM will not boot after using Target Disk mode connected Intel iMac.

Hi,
We have some new Intel iMacs and have transferred some information from our previous G4 PM (one MDD and one Quicksilver) to the new iMacs. For some reason the G4's will now not boot up and kernal panic on the gray Apple boot screen. This has happened to all the G4's we have in our office. They are running OSX 10.2.8 and the iMacs are running OSX 10.4.4. We can still mount the drives from the G4's using FireWire Target Disk mode.
I have tried zapping the PRAM etc but they still wont boot. I have also tried running the OSX 10.2 Installer disks to try and reinstall OSX on the G4's but the installer cannot see the drives?
Anyone have any idea what is wrong. Never had this problem before using the FireWire transfer.
Thanks,
Nick.

I had an experience with a mini mac after booting in target disk mode while connected to a blue and White G3 via Firewire. After attempting a restart, all I got was a blinking ? which usually means the startup disk or system folder can not be found.
I fixed this problem by booting using the originall install CD and then using the startup disk menu to reselect the original system disk/system folder as the startup disk. On reboot. all was good. Only took a couple of minutes.....

G4 450 Sawtooth - Won't Boot to FW Target Disk Mode

Running 10.5.8
Upgraded NewerTech 2G Processor
ATI 9800 Pro Video Card
Original WD 20G Drive with 10.5.8 (Back Up Boot Disk)
New Seagate 500G SATA - Primary Boot drive
FirmTech SATA Controller Card
New Seagate 1.5T - Misc Storage
Disk Utility and Disk Warrior both report no problems on either boot drive.
The machine will boot in any form I choose.
Any available boot drive / disk using Start Up > Option key
To the Install DVD using Start Up > C key
Using single user mode - Start Up > Comm and S key
Using USB Thumb Drive (Has 10.5.8 and Disk Warrior)
The machine will not boot to Target Disk Mode using the T key. Before getting beyond the Black screen the computer shuts down.
I've tried:
alternately using each boot drive while the other is disconnected
removing RAM
removing the SATA controller card
checked all connections
Zapped Pram and reset PMU (had to reset Mac OSX Firmware for the NewerTech Processor after pram set)
The only other thing I can find is a reference to Firmware Password Protection, but from what I read the computer should show start up problems beyond just TDM. Additionally, I am not familiar with FPP. All I know is it would be set (reset) from the Install Disk.
Any thoughs please?

Make sure there is a hard drive available as Master on the ATA 0 bus.
FireWire Target Disk Mode: Target Computer Shuts Down at Startup
How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode

Data recovery options if drive not accessible through Target Disk Mode

I have the classic data recovery question: my computer seems to have failed, and I'd like to save some data. Thanks in advance for any advice.
Details:
- Most recent backup was about a month ago to Time Machine (unfortunately, this laptop went off on a long trip and didn't have access to the destination disk, and then when it came home was running very slowly and my wife halted the TM backup thinking it was slowing the computer down). Some documents have been backed up more recently via Dropbox and/or Mozy, but not a couple important ones
- When booted in Target Disk Mode, no drive shows up on the computer to which I connect it
- When I boot from an OS X CD, a drive appears in Disk Utility with no volumes on it, and the options to 'repair disk' and 'verify disk' are greyed out.
- When I try to just start the computer up, it gets to the grey screen with the apple and just spins.
Questions:
- Should I attempt anything else myself? I've never learned about Lion's Recovery Mode; can it be used to copy some data off, in the unlikely case that this computer would boot into that Mode? Would any further attempts to boot, etc. potentially reduce the chances of a professional company recovering data?
- I'm planning to take this to an Apple Store today to confirm that this is indeed a hard drive problem and not a failed mother board or something; is there a way for me to do this myself? In the past I've used Hardware Test CDs from Apple and stuff; I don't know if those still work on modern computers.
Thanks again for any help!

I know I used to have a copy of Disk Warrior, but can't find it and it's probably out of date. I downloaded the Data Rescue demo, but it only got partway through scanning the disk and then failed. It told me to 'clone' the disk, but after about three days of trying still wasn't making much progress on it, so I gave up.
However, I was able to recover the few important files I needed simply by removing the drive, putting it in an enclosure, and connecting it via USB. After 10 or 20 minutes, Finder gave me a message that said something like, "this disk cannot be repaired, and is probably damaged. You can still access the disk, but copy everything off ASAP because it will probably fail soon." Some files indeed couldn't be copied, but I could copy the things I needed.
I assume that this is a hardware problem. To confirm, I assume that I can check it without having DiskWarrior simply by trying to reformat it? If it can't be reformatted, I assume there's no chance that it is a functioning drive. Is that right?

Power Mac G4 stuck in Target Disk Mode

The other night I put my Gigbit Ethernet into Target Disk Mode so I could migrate my files to a newer machine (a mirrored drive door G4 with dual 1.42mhz processors). After the migration was complete (which took 9 hours), I tried ejecting the target disk but got a perpetual spinning beach ball and had to force everything off. Unfortunately, either because my newer machine came with a faulty Tiger installation, or my migration messed the installation up - the finder kept crashing and things such as "Get Info" wasn't working- I had to endeavor to get a working version of Tiger on the newer machine. I wanted to clone my older drive to my newer drive.
Futzing around for over an hour to try to gain access to my old Power Mac's hard Disc, which was still, according to the bouncing Icon on the screen, in target disk mode, I could not access the drive at all from the newer machine. When I tried, such as by double clicking on its desktop icon, by right clicking on the same Icon, or if I went into the system preferences to change the startup disk with the gigabit ethernet attached, I got the perpetual spinning beach ball. Also, I could not access the drive from the disk utility app that is on the Tiger install DVD. Luckily, I had a pretty fresh bootable backup of the gigabit ethernet on a firewire drive that I cloned to my newer computer. I just have a handful of files that I want to transfer from the gigabit ethernet if I had my drothers.
Am I screwed here? Is there a way to force my Gigabit Ethernet out of Target Disk Mode without hooking it up to another computer? If it's possible to get the Gigabit Ethernet to boot again successfully, I can transfer my file over my network. Any help would be appreciated.
Cheers

I am confused...it sounds to me like what you wish to do is to make an exact copy of the hard disk in your Gigabit Ethernet and apply that copy to the drive in your MDD, correct?
From what I understand, you are saying you cannot access your GE's hard disk using target disk mode? Or am I mistaken? Also, can you not boot up normally on the GE's hard disk? Is there something wrong with it?
The easiest way to clone a disk is to just make a disk image of the hard disk you wish to keep, and then apply that disk image to the destination disk. Disk utility can perform all this very easily, and pretty quickly. Of course, if you are having trouble booting in target disk mode, this can be a problem...
I'm still kind of confused on what exactly is the problem, and what you are trying to accomplish. Could you please explain a little more and answer the questions above? Much appreciated.

Mac Book Pro 2.13 17" can only boot up in Safe Mode

I have a 4+ year old Mac Book Pro 2.13 Intel Core 2 Duo 17" and it's primarily been used for heavy graphics usage it's entire life. (Adobe CS Suite etc). A few weeks ago I was watching a video, Hulu, and the entire screen froze. Since it was none responsive I force powered off. waited a few and restarted. I got to the Grey screen, Apple logo, and after 30 sec the screen went to all grey and no further. Tried it several times, powering off, removing battery, resetting PRAM, all to the same result.
Things that DO work:
Can boot in Target Disk mode and mount the disk on another computer. Ran Disk utility and all check out.
Can boot in Safe mode but screen shows some video artifacts. Light red squares all over the screen.
Can option boot to choose a disk although see the same result as above description.
Things That DONT work:
Booting from CD fails at same location as OS boot
Booting using Hardware Check Disk
I haven't visited an apple store yet for this issue since I'm hoping to repair myself once I narrow down the problem.
I'm guessing it's the power supply but not sure. It does get hot so guessing something is wonky.
Any thoughts?
Thanks

Been reading a little and the Mac Book Pro may not have a power supply in the traditional sense so it may not be replaceable. Hmm

Firewire target disk mode install leopard

Does anyone know if it is possible to install Leo via dvd to another computer booted in target disk mode?
My work computer somehow lost some important OS files during an system update, and now I can't get past single user mode, nor can I seem to boot from CD (although I haven't tried in awhile, may not have had a bootable disk at the time). What I want to do is wipe the HDD, and install the OS.

Leopard OS Disks are universal (ppc and intel), so it was irrelevant to include that information.
No it wasn't. I see many posts where people are trying to use installer discs that come with another computer to install the OS on a second model. TDM is a popular way of trying that. Since you did not provide full information in your question as to which discs you had I could not rule this out.
You also don't say anything about the computer models, which would help in answering your questions. The question immediately comes to mind, why don't you just boot from the installer DVD?
Anyway, put the newer computer into TDM with the two connected, you should hopefully be able to see the DVD in the drive on the TDM computer and select it as a startup disk on the older computer. Another way is to hold down the option key while booting, but some computers don't have that capability.
Message was edited by: Limnos

Target disk mode only shows bootcamp partition

My mid 2006 MBP doesn't boot anymore, I am getting the gray screen with the rotating wheel.
When trying to boot in target disk mode and connect it to my iMac only the bootcamp partition is mounting, but not the Macintosh HD, I could like to make a backup before I run to the Genius Bar.
Any ideas on how to get to the real HD?

I can't boot from snow leopard DVD either. When I try, the DVD just ejects. I was able to boot once in safe mode, repaired disk permissions there. Since then it's not booting anymore. Sometimes I get a gray progress bar, sometimes just spinning wheel. Can't even boot from external disk.
The only thing that works is booting into Windows Safe Mode. But screen looks fuzzy, with small horizontal lines all over the screen.
Before my MBP froze there were 8 horizontal lines around the mouse cursor under OSX.
I just want to try to get to my Mac partition to backup the drive before I go to the Genius Bar.

How do I start-up in Target Disk mode without a keyboard ....?

I am trying to start-up an iMac 700 G4 flatpanel in Target Disk mode without a USB keyboard ... the machine is running Mac OS X.3 Panther & the system prefernces do not include the start-up in Target mode feature that Mac OS X.4 Tiger has ...
Actually, I do have a bluetooth keyboard which works fine once I get to the desktop - but the keyboard will not pair quick enough to register the 'T' hold-down before the system boots up ...
Q: Is there another way I can get this machine to boot in Target mode ...?
Maybe a terminal command ....?
I am not so savvy with Terminal - but if someone can step me thru it (v e r y s l o w l y) - you will have my sincerest gratitude ...;-)
Nutshell: Firewire Target startup between iMac 700 running Panther with no keyboard - to G5 PowerMac running Tiger ....

Niel ....
That's so helpful!! very happy mate - thank you ....
I have successfully booted into Target Disk mode using the command at Mac Geekery as suggested ... however, a backward step is now required without access to the machine's terminal window ...
Q1: How do I reset the PRAM without a keyboard ...?
Q2: What is the Open Firmware reset command via a 'hard-pressed' power-up using the Power button at the rear of machine ...?
... I still cannot pair my Bluetooth Keyboard early enough to register a PRAM reset (Opt Cmd P+R) at start-up (as per instructions by the authour) before the system boots back into the 'fixed Target mode ...
Any suggestions ...? ... or can anyone else assist ...?
Oh, & thanks again everyone ... & apologies this request might not be in the correct catergory ....
Best,
Macfinger

Install Leopard Server Onto Mac Mini via Firewire Target Disk Mode?

From the answers I have seen, so far anyway, the short of it is this can be done. Other than partitioning the Mini's hard drive as a GPT, which I don't know how to do.
Is there anyway to install via firewire target disk mode? The Server Assistant on my MacBook Pro wants to connect to the Mini via a network connection... but, the Mini has no monitor and no OS installed (it has an empty 500 GB hard drive). Thus, I can't get them to talk to each other over a network connection, can I?
I could try and plug it into a monitor and install locally, but the Install disc is on my MBP and currently it is in Firewire TDM, with the Mini's hard drive mounted on the Pro.
I don't want to have to get a monitor to do this... The Mini is brand new 1.83 with 2 GB of RAM and a Samsung 500 GB internal hard drive. It is mounted and the Server Installer sees it, but cannot use it because it just sees it as a firewire drive (the installer won't install to these drives I guess).
Any suggestions?
Message was edited by: Ryan Vetter1

you can configure it using server admin and workgroup manager running on another machine. you can also use screen sharing/ard if you need to see what you're doing. as long as it has a valid address on the lan, you can configure it. just be sure to give it a static address is you're going to use it as a server.
you could have installed the os from your dmg with the mini booted in target disk mode, too. the installers are in /System/Installation/Packages. you should be able to run them by double-clicking the OS installer or using the /usr/sbin/installer command from the command line.

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.

Can't boot in target disk mode

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