Using thunderbolt to firewire adapter for target disc mode

I need to transfer several GB of data from a 2011 iMac running OS 10.6 to a new Mac Mini running OS 10.9. Can I connect the older iMac to the newer Mini with a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter and boot the iMac into Target Disc Mode and transfer the data to the new Mac Mini? I've used TDM with two Firewire machines, but not with a newer Thunderbolt to Firewire Machine using an adapter.
Thanks for any input.
--SL

Hi Salnews,
I've done quite a bit of research on this, as this is what I plan to do (only from a MBP on 10.9, but I don't think your situation would be any different) and everything I've read says the answer is yes.
EDIT: I see you're on 10.6.7. You should update to 10.6.8 first.

Similar Messages

No FireWire cable for Target Disk Mode

I have an original MacBook1,1 running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. It will not start up, I have tried everything on this Apple web page , Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup, besides an erase and reinstall and I don't know what to do. It won't read the Snow Leopard update disk (My other two Macs do). When I restart In Verbose Mode, it always stops right after 'Airport: RSN handshake complete on en1'. When i started my other Mac in Verbose Mode, after 'Airport: RSN handshake complete on en1', it went straight to the login window. I called Apple support and they said that I need to perform an erase and reinstall but first I need to get an install disk for Mac OS X Tiger 10.4. and get some things off using Target Disk Mode. I do not have a FireWire cable and do not want to have to go and buy one. I have an Ethernet cable and a male - male USB cord. The two other Macs that I have are an iMac7,1 running Snow Leopard 10.6.8, and a MacBook6,1 running Mavericks 10.9.4. If you have any solutions for fixing it without the erase, or just a way to get my info off of it, please help.
Thank you in advance!

The USB cable won't be useful in that situation, and the Ethernet one will only help if you have access to a computer running Mac OS X Server. Get a FireWire cable.
(111882)

Firewire Cable (for target disk mode)

Hi all,
I'm using a Late 2010 27" i5 iMac and a Late 2009 15" MacBook Pro. I'm going to reformat and reinstall the iMac this weekend but need to grab all my Music/Documents (you know the drill) from it. Last time I did this, I did it over a 100mbps network, needless to say it was absolutely horribly slow. So, today I'm going to pick up a cheap-ish firewire cable and target my laptop as a disk using target disk mode.
Which type of Firewire cable do I need to buy? It's either a 4-pin or 6-pin choice, no 9-pins available at the shop I intend to visit. I have no idea what the difference is between them - hardware is definitely not my game.
Both ports look like this (taken from Apple's docs, Firewire 800):
Any advice would be hugely appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Andy

I'm using a Late 2010 27" i5 iMac and a Late 2009 15" MacBook Pro.
Just verified the specs for these two in MacTracker just to be sure. Yes, both are FW800. So you need a 9-pin to 9-pin FW cable (like these)

Target Disc Mode via Firewire PC Card

I am unable to boot my PowerBook Ti in firewire disc mode as my firewire port died. Since i've been using a PC card with 3 firewire ports on it. When attempting to reboot in firewire disc mode with another mac it just restarts.
I surmise the issue lies in the boot order? Does the PC card load later than when an internal firewire port would become available?
Thanks!

Hello Nathan,
I believe the reason you can not use firewire disc mode is because you need to use the built-in firewire ports for target disc mode to work. The device information for the built-in firewire ports are loaded with Open Firmware as the computer starts up. I'm guessing that the PCMCIA card slot device information isn't loaded until after Open Firmware has loaded, thus making it unavailable for firewire target disc mode.
Hope this helps!
Hi O,
In my experience, the superdrives are reliable and i wouldn't worry about it breaking. That being said, all drives will die eventually, but the superdrives seem to be well built and usually last a long time. Replacing an optical drive on a 12" AL powerbook is actually quite a pain. You basically have to remove everything, including the logic board, to replace it. I wouldn't recommend replacing it yourself unless you have the proper experience and tools required.
Hope this helps!
Brian Cometa (ACHDS)
www.briancometa.com

Installing tiger on an ibook w/o dvd, but using target disc mode?

so here is the problem. i bought tiger for my ibook (g3 500mhz 312 mb airport cd drive...) so i found out the hard way that i can not install tiger dvd on my ibook (it has a cd drive.) so i was thinking and booted it up in target disc mode on my g4 tower running 10.2.8 the hard drive came up on the g4 and i installed sucessfully tiger on to the ibook! i was really excited that it worked. (i really didn;t want to order the cd set from apple)
so i went to start and download updates and it didn't connect. so i went to configure the airport and had a ton of problems. it just won't! airport will not recgonize any networks, and i have done it all to configure it. the ibook sees the card too!
so i took the card out of the ibook and installe dit in tehg4 tower and bravo it works just fine, so the problem is not the card at all.
i then took the ibiik to firsttech (an apple store) and they booted it up in network mode and the card worked just fine! they think that because i installed tiger fro a computer that was not running an airport network that it did not install that part of the software. this i do not believe becaust all of the airport stuff is there to configure, the problem is it just won't.
so to make things more interesting the screen will freeze. and after that when i reboot the ibook the screen is dead. and it stays dead for a while so this is just a pain. i try to reboot it in target disc mode but the icon does not show up on the host computer. i can run system profiler and the g4 will see the ibook as a firewire device in target disc mode, but i just can't see it on the desktop. i can hear the hard drive running, and i get the chime so i know it is on.
so i know that the problem is probably tiger as i know that there have some problems with it. but i just don't get it. b4 i reinstall 10.2 can anyone give me any help fixing tiger?
THANKS!
SEAN
g4 tower Mac OS X (10.4.8) ibook! g3 too
g4 tower Mac OS X (10.4.8) ibook! g3 too

Hi sean,
first of all: WELCOME TO THE DISCUSSIONS!
You probably did the target-disk install the wrong way round. If you booted the G4 from the install DVD and from there installed Tiger to the G3 iBook you have installed the G4 hardware drivers which are not compatible with the iBook.
You have to do it this way:
Insert the install DVD into the G4. Start the G4 into target disk mode by holding down the t-key during boot. Connect the G4 to the iBook using a firewire cable. Now boot the iBook while holding down the option-key. This will bring you into the boot manager where you can select the install DVD as boot-volume.
Once the installer has started perform an Archive&Install to the iBook hard disk. This should solve your problem.
Remember: Repair permissions before and after an update!
If this answered your question please consider granting some stars: Why reward points?

Can't use Target Disc Mode with Imac Indigo? help

So after holding off on buying a new imac for over 5 years I decide to pick one up. I restarted the intel imac in target disc mode. After doing that. My old imac gives me a message saying it can't read the contents of the hard disc connected through the firewire.
This older imac doesn't even have an option for target disc mode. It has Panther OSX. Do both computers have to have the same operating system? Are there any other options out there. I just want to get the 7 gigs of music off my old imac and onto the new intel imac.

Depending on which indigo you have, some didn't even have FW ports. The slot loading ones did, and according to Apple, with firmware 2.4 you can use FW Target mode. (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583)
Another option is to connect the systems with FW but configure IP over FW and then enable sharing on the indigo and connect to it.

Can I import video from a Firewire camcorder using the Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter?

I have an older camcorder that has a firewire interface. My new iMac does not have any firewire ports. Can I import video from the camcorder using a Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter or is the Thunderbold adapter only used for hard drives and displays?

Rather than an adapter, I would suggest you purchase a 4 pin to 9 pin Firewire 800 cable to run from the camera to the Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter. Those FW 400 to 800 adapters frequently do not work so well for importing video in my experience.
The Firewire cables are pretty inexpensive if you get them online. For example try Monoprice.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=103&cp_id=10301&cs_id=1030104 &p_id=3541&seq=1&format=2

Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter gets very hot in use (?)

I've had the thunderbolt to firewire adapter cable for a month, connecting either a 500 GB or 1 TB "G-Drive" bus-powered HD. I note the small box at the firewire end of the adapter cable becomes quite warm in use.
Is this to be expected?
It is worrisome from, at least, the perspective of economy of power consumption, on a MacBook Air, used frequently away from a power outlet.

You might want to post in the MacBook Air forum, then. This is the Apple Thunderbolt Dislpaly forum...
Clinton

Can I use the new Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter to download video from a video camera by firewire to my Macbook Air ?

Can I use the new Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter to download video from a video camera by firewire to my Macbook Air ?

Yes, you can use the 85 watt adaptor. You cannot use the new adaptors because your computer is not equipped with the proper MagSafe connector. But you can use the older MBP adaptors as well as a 60 watt replacement adaptor. All can be found at Apple's Online Store.

Using target disc mode to access a broken laptop

I'm using a 1.33 15" PB with 10.3.9
and broken early 12" still on 10.2.8
During an attempted repair of the 12" DC in jack, also replacing the broken CD/DVD Drive with a SD using a replacement lower case and screen that still had the screen control? and dc in jack in it, broke the connection for the screen control on the 12" logic board, Thought I had it effectively soldered back on, but appears not. Screen won't light up, But appears to powering up, get the dong and hard drive spins up.
Was told to connect the two units together with firewire and use the Target disc mode to access the data on the broken machine. (which normally needs to be logged into on start up normally, but can't, not being able see the screen)
With the 12" powered up, I restarted the 15" holding the "T" key down and get a screen that has a Yellow "Y" like icon that moves around the screen, "O" with 3 extensions off it, 1 solid and other 2 dashes.
After a minute or so, shut it down, now sure if it was eventually going to work or should have waited longer. or done something else?, Was expecting the normal desktop to show up with some kind of icon for the other computer, then maybe figure out from there how to transfer the data to the new unit.
Have no idea what to do next or what the problem might be, if I'm doing something wrong, or have to change settings somewhere on the 15" before doing it?
This a used unit, with a fresh 10.3 install and upgraded to 10.3.9 Haven't even gone into the system preferences yet and don't know what most of it's for anyway, (Just did the initial set up) or if the 12" has hardware problems still, etc,
Have a USB external HD adapter and can take the HD out of the 12" instead and see If that'll work? But still not sure if I'm going to encounter something else again that's not easy to figure out in order to get the data off it. Transfer it to the 15" or be able to use it on the external drive
Thanks in advance, And hopefully simple instructions....

Thanks, That eventually worked, Oddly produced an open OS 9 Virtual PC 3 Application folder on the 15" desktop that I installed on the 12" long ago and never used before the external drive icon as I named it for the 12" showed up
Clicking on the external hard drive icon had it open the 15" system folder? Hard drive content window (the os 10.3.9 having a different format than what I'm used to seeing)
All the familiar folders from the 12" were there, but the couple times I tried to open one of them, the external hard drive icon and related entire open desktop window, (Hard drive content) disappeared and produced an error message to properly eject the item, But there nothing there to eject anymore, subsequent attempts to get it back failing, But eventually got it up again.
But can't open the 12" mail application to retrieve my old emails and can't seem to find the file to rebuild the 15" mailbox into what I had in my 12" or save/find those emails, but not sure where to look, must be files somewhere for them.
Every time I click on the mail app in the 12" file, it pops down into application bar and disappears. Tried dragging it into the 15"s icon and that not doing anything either. Also dragging it into the app tool bar and trying to open it and it doing nothing, Presume unable to in the later os.
Will this still happen if I take the HD out? and connect with my USB adapter? Need to boot from this? (have no idea how to do that)
Any suggestions on where to find my old mailbox files? Tried opening a number of odd files in the system folder and found nothing in some of them.
I'm presuming this isn't working because it's still an OS X 10.2.8 application But all the other files appear to still be there and think I found the mail before at one time.
Also got an error in iphoto, Can't open it because it needs to be opened in the later version. But found the 12" iphoto file and dragged it to the desktop and took a bit to transfer, so presume I should move it or specific files in it into the 15" iphoto 15" file to retreive the photo's. (and also moved my camera app to reinstall) Same with my itunes which only had a few cd's in it.
The 12" desktop also took a bit to find, but moved that file to the 15" desk top and those files took a little while to transfer. Some of those are MS Word files so also moved the MS Word app and expect to need to reinstall it before trying to open any of those word doc's.
Still wonder why it produced that os 9 as an open folder which was a virtual pc 3 program I never got around to using,

Apple no longer making thunderbolt to firewire adapter!

I just visited an apple store today to be told that Apple are no longer making the thunderbolt to firewire adapter which was meant to be released this month (July). Calling Apple customer support also confirmed this. It is also no longer mentioned as a option, when ordering a new MBP retina on the Apple online store.
As I've just purchased a new MBP retina for portable video editing, the prospect of not being able to plug in all my legacy firewire drives to the MBP is very frustrating, and I'm sure many people are in the same situation. Trying to daisy chain via a USB 3 LaCie drive to firewire did not work when tested and it's likely that any other solutions via hubs etc, will probably require mains power. For ediitng on the road via bus powered drives, firewire is suddenly not an option at present.
Many of us have gone through these transitions before as Apple pushes new and better technology forward at the expence of backwards compatibility. Thunderbolt will be great, but curently it is expensive and not widely adopted, where as firewire drives are considerbaly cheaper than thunderbolt drives and many of us have a large number of these drives being used on a daily basis.
I'm sure other manufactures will be scrabling to bring a thunderbolt to firewire adapter to the market, however the fact that Apple has stopped making it before it was even released is alarming.

Styphin wrote:
And yet, FireWire became an industry standard. Your argument is invalid.
Key word highlighted (in comparison to "has become"). As Shootist points out, it is harder and harder to find any kind of FW device out there. Hence my soon to be orphaned 11 external HDDs, 2 of which only have FW and probably be unusable when I have to replace my current Mac. The rest fortunately have USB2 too and will have to function in a slow speed crippled mode when the time comes.
Even Apple is hedging its bets, else why add two USB3 ports and the HDMI in addition to the purportedly wonderful TB?

Migration Assistant with Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter?

Hey gang-
Finally retiring my mid-2007 iMac with a new Late-2013 iMac. Yayyyy!
I've always been happy with Migration Assistant, but wanted to ask the experts if Migration Assistant will work with the Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter. I'm planning on connecting the old iMac Firewire 800 port to the new iMac Thunderbolt port via the adapter. On a related note, I assume that same as always, I will need to boot the old iMac into Target Disk mode, right?
Thanks!
Dave

Of course. You can connect both iMacs with a FireWire 800 cable and a Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter without any problem. The problem would come if the old iMac has not got FireWire 800 ports, but the Mid 2007 iMac comes with one.
In order to use Migration Assistant and transfer files from another iMac through FireWire, you need to put your old iMac in Target Disk mode as you said. To do this, simply hold the T key while your old iMac is starting up until you see the FireWire icon in the display. Then you can set up your new iMac, and you will be asked to transfer your data.
If you have already set up your new iMac, use Migration Assistant (in /Applications/Utilities) > http://pondini.org/OSX/MigrateLion.html

Is there a thunderbolt to firewire adapter?

Hi,
First of all, I know there is an apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapter but i'm looking for the opposite adapter.
I have a 2010 imac and I'm about to buy a MBP but the problem I see is that my imac has firewire 800 and usb 2.0 ports, whereas the new MBP have thunderbolt and usb 3.0 ports. I need a new external hard drive to work with for editing with Final Cut, but most of them have thunderbolt or usb 3.0.
- If I buy a hard drive with hunderbolt or usb 3.0 I can use it with the new MBP but not with my iMac, well yes but with usb 2.0 that is horrible to work with.
- If I buy a hard drive with firewire, which are being excluded of the market (I've made a research and for example at Western Digital website they don't offer any HD with firewire at all) I should buy the new adapter firewire to thunderbolt from apple to use it with a MBP.
The question is simple, as I see external hard drives with FireWire are being removed, and my 2010 iMac still works perfectly... do you know if there's going to be an adapter thunderbolt to FireWire that could connect a thunderbolt-external hard drive to my iMac's FireWire port??
Thanks!!

Have a look at theses drives, I understand you buy the drive with USB 3 and can then purchase a Thunderbolt adapter and a FireWire adapter. I think the drive plugs into the base unit in the photo which is the adapter. You could have the Firewire plugged into the old Mac and the Thunderbolt in the new one. Just swop the drive between computers.
I don't know what speeds the drive spins at, if it is 5400 it may be too slow for you, but that is something you can decide.
http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/external-hard-drives/desktop-hard-drives/backup-plu s-desk/#specs

No internet with Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter

I bought a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter, and i used it to connect a Iomega drive I previously used as USB.
When running OSX, no problem.
But when i boot the computer under Windows 7 (not SP1), if the adapter is connected, then the computer says that there aren't connections avalaible. If i boot without the adapter, everything worls fine and i can connect to my WiFi connection. (I don't have an Ethernet cable plugged, so i can't says if the Ethernet connection doesn't work too)
Any suggestion? Has someone experienced this?
Many thanks in advance!

Of course. You can connect both iMacs with a FireWire 800 cable and a Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter without any problem. The problem would come if the old iMac has not got FireWire 800 ports, but the Mid 2007 iMac comes with one.
In order to use Migration Assistant and transfer files from another iMac through FireWire, you need to put your old iMac in Target Disk mode as you said. To do this, simply hold the T key while your old iMac is starting up until you see the FireWire icon in the display. Then you can set up your new iMac, and you will be asked to transfer your data.
If you have already set up your new iMac, use Migration Assistant (in /Applications/Utilities) > http://pondini.org/OSX/MigrateLion.html

Does the Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter work w/ W540?

I have an external storage drive that relies on Firewire 800, or USB 2.0 - I'd prefer to use the Firewire! I discovered the Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter ( http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Thunderbolt-to-FireWire-Adapter/dp/B008RXYOKY ), but I haven't seen any clones for sale... Does anyone know if it will work with the W540 and Windows 7?

Hi DIgitalsmear
I bought one of this adapters to connect my firewire audio interface to my lenovo carbon X1 which has a thunderbolt out. And atm i have no proper connection going on, but i'm not yet sure whether it is because of the adapter or something else.
greetings
Milan

Using thunderbolt to firewire adapter for target disc mode

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