Target disk mode is a very handy feature available to use with macs that have thunderbolt or firewire ports, and it allows you to use one mac as an external drive on another host machine. Target disk mode is a boot mode unique to macintosh computers. Once the computer is in target disk mode and available as an external volume to the host mac, you can copy files to or from that volume. A third possibility is to mount your dvdchallenged computer as an external hard drive from a dvd drive equipped mac via firewire target disk mode and choose its hard drive as the destination disk in the os x 10. Apr 01, 20 connect an external hard drive to your mac that has enough space to save your entire hard drive partition to it. Derek abella lifewire still, it can be quite compelling to see your mac mini making use of your older 27inch imac as a display, or for troubleshooting an imac having display issues. Filevault 2 target disk mode unlock using the personal. How to restart a mac in target disk mode server techs. When you see the drive listing, select the icon for your original drive.
Boot from your old drive by starting your computer and pressing the option key. Lacie 4tb rugged raid pro usbc hard drive with builtin sd card reader next gallery image. How to access a nonbootable macintosh hard drive for file. How to boot a mac from an external drive or alternate startup. With the target drive mounted on your macs desktop, you can now use any repair utilities you may have, including disk utilitys ability to repair a drive. Connect your external drive into the appropriate port on your mac.
How to recover data from another mac in target disk mode. Once you plug the target mac into the host mac using a usbthunderbolt cable you can access all of the target macs files on the host mac. The 2016 macbook pro offers target disk mode over usb, in addition to thunderbolt and firewire. Seagate 2tb backup plus slim portable external hard drive usb. Oct 26, 2017 target disk mode has several uses in correlation to disk drill and in general. Your data is still present on the external hard drive, but due to the corruption of the structure, you wont be able to access it. If there is a software problem with your mac then booting from an external drive will usually work therefore follow the steps indexed below to connect the external hard drive with your host mac. I was going to install the os using the original disks then update to mac os snow leopard. When you restart your computer in target disk mode and connect it to another computer with a firewire cable, your macs hard drive will open in the second computer, where you can copy, delete and manage files. Get it today with same day delivery, order pickup or drive up. File transfer from mac in target disk mode to windows 7. Mar 16, 2020 but in the end, target display mode became an appleonly technology that allowed mac users to drive an imacs display from another mac. Consider how youll be saving and transferring files, such as photos, videos, files from tablets, files from pc laptops, or photos from toprated cell phones. One of these is target disk mode, which essentially turns your mac into an external hard drive.
Any mac with a firewire or thunderbolt port can be started up in target disk mode. Seagate 2tb backup plus slim portable external hard drive. A mac booted in target mode can be attached to the port of any other computer mac or pc where it will appear as an external device. Dec 19, 2016 as long as the drive is not mechanically failing and is able to be recognized as an external drive, then you can run a scan with data rescue software to recover the data. Connect one mac to another mac and you can access its files in the finder.
With this option, you can access the hard drive of the mac with the lost files, while minimizing system usage. Lets explore different cases on how target disk mode is useful. Taking a quick peek, i can already see mackeeper, chumsearch. When a mac is booted in target disk mode, the typical boot sequence is bypassed and the operating system is not loaded. Target disk mode allows one mac with firewire or now with thunderbolt to be used as an external hard disk connected to another computer. By default, your mac starts up from its builtin hard disk, but a startup disk can be any storage device that contains an operating system compatible with your mac.
Mar 17, 2017 when your hard drive starts to fail, disk utility offers some useful disk repair tools. Please be cautious dont format your external hard drive until unless you have extracted your data from it. Target disk mode sometimes referred to as tdm or target mode is a boot mode unique to macintosh computers when a mac that supports target disk mode is started with the t key held down, its operating system does not boot. Thunderbolt via target disk mode other world computing. It will work with just about any storage device that you can mount to your mac, including disk images, hard drives, ssds, and usb flash drives. With target disk mode, you can use a recent mac to access the main internal hard disk in another recent apple machine without. Recover mac storage drive data via target disk mode. When a mac that supports target disk mode is started with the t key held down, its operating. Understanding the applications for target disk mode. Hey all i just picked up a 20 mac pro 6 and was hoping to use it in conjunction with my 2017 imac so i could boot either the mac pro or imac in target disk and utilize the imac as a monitor for both systems only to find that imacs w retinas dont support target display mode. One of the most recent uses is file recovery on the latest macos release, high sierra. Before entering target disk mode, youll need a few things.
Every mac can use a variety of boot modes and startup key combinations a quick guide to macos boot modes and startup key combinations heres what you need to know about mac boot options and modes if you want to troubleshoot startup and other issues. We decided to go for the gusto in our first test and installed a 240gb owc mercury extreme pro 6g ssd into the main bay of our 2011 thunderbolt port equipped inch macbook pro. Hardly a surprise given the above i have the original disks that came with my computer and mac os snow leopard. The mac booting into tdm will function like a real external hard drive, and you can access its files in the finder on another mac.
Transfer files between two mac computers using target disk. Click extras next to the volume you wish to recover files from and select backup into dmg image. Moreover, users are even able to run a mac in target disk mode even if it is unbootable, which makes it possible to migrate data from a dead macbook pro to a. Seagate 2tb backup plus slim portable external hard drive usb 3. Then reboot the nonbootable mac holding down the t key, which puts it in target disk mode. Hard drives within the target mac, for example, can be formatted, partitioned, etc. Apr 07, 2010 target disk mode is a very handy feature available to use with macs that have thunderbolt or firewire ports, and it allows you to use one mac as an external drive on another host machine. You may want to consider using target disk mode with thunderbolt 3.
That feature is the target disk mode built into the mac firmware. To use the default boot image on the server, hold down optionn instead. The macbook has thunderbolt but no firewire and the imac has firewire but no thunderbolt so i have bought a thunderbolt to firewire adapter which is plugged into the macbook and connected it by a firewire 800 cable to the imac. Another possibility is to purchase or borrow a freestanding, bootable firewire dvd drive and run the installer from it. Scanning external hard drives malwarebytes for mac. The target mac is the mac you use as an external hard drive and is started up first. If you boot your host mac into startup manager while your target mac is connected in target disk mode, your target macs drive will show up as a bootable volume on your host mac. Jun 18, 2018 one of these is target disk mode, which essentially turns your mac into an external hard drive. If you have two mac computers with firewire or thunderbolt ports, you can connect them so that one of them appears as an external hard disk on the other.
But in the end, target display mode became an appleonly technology that allowed mac users to drive an imacs display from another mac. The disk of the target mac is available to the host mac and files can be copied from target to or from the host. Drive speed is measured in revolutions per minute rpm, based on how fast the drive can spin. With a mac safely in target disk mode, its hard drive contents can be read from another computer and it is essentially reduced to the role of external hard drive, from which it can be booted from, and an operating system can even be installed. All of the connection types firewire, thunderbolt, and usbc support hot. To boot into startup manager, press the power button on your host mac and then immediately press and hold the option key sometimes marked alt on your keyboard. Backup to external in recovery mode terminal or time. A third possibility is to mount your dvdchallenged computer as an external hard drive from a dvd driveequipped mac via firewire target disk mode and choose its hard drive as the destination disk in the os x 10.
Because it is a simple copy and paste command, you dont have to delete the backup in your time machine disk. Due to the new restrictions introduced by apple, some thirdparty apps are unable to access the main boot disk for operations like file recovery. Mode, which essentially turns your mac into an external hard drive. Have switched the mac into target disk mode which makes it behave just like an external hard drive and plugged it into my laptop via firewire. Target disk mode is a special boot mode that enables nearly any mac to behave like an external hard drive for another mac.
Lacie 4tb rugged raid pro usbc hard drive with builtin sd card reader previous gallery image. Desktop external hard drives usually run at 7200 rpm to offer all the speed they can. Feb 08, 2020 then i connected the macbook to the imac with a thunderbolt to firewire adapter and a firewire 800 cable, started the macbook in target mode by holding down the t key as it booted and used the recovery software installed on the imac to scan the macbook hard drive for deleted files, after a few hours it recovered a lot of the lost photos. How to repair hard disks with fsck on macos make tech easier. Install carbon copy cloner if you have not done so already, then launch the application. Connect your macs via a firewire or thunderbolt cable. Use firewire target disk mode to troubleshoot a mac. Windows 7 recognises an sbp2 compliant ieee 94 device has been plugged in. Using target disk mode to recover macintosh hard drive. Target disk mode is a way of booting a macintosh computer so that it acts as an external hard drive on another computer. Besides using another mac to boot an unresponsive system in target disk mode, a viable system on an external drive can work as well. As long as the drive is not mechanically failing and is able to be recognized as an external drive, then you can run a scan with data rescue software to recover the data. How to enable target disk mode via thunderbolt macworld. How to boot a mac from an external drive or alternate.
Sep 02, 2015 as mentioned, target disk mode lets your mac be used as an external hard disk connected to another mac. Due to the new restrictions introduced by apple, some thirdparty apps are unable to access the. How to boot your mac in target disk mode for easy file transfers. Lacie 4tb rugged raid pro usbc hard drive lacie 2tb dji copilot boss hard drive previous gallery image. This is a lot like opening up your mac, removing the internal drive, placing it in an enclosure, and then connecting it to another mac. For example, if you install macos on an internal or external drive, your mac can recognize that drive as a startup disk. After data restoration, you can navigate to the disk utility and select your hard drive for initializing. Until recently, you enabled target disk mode by connecting two macs together via firewire. When i boot the hard drive in target disk mode, im told disk utilities cant repair my disk, and ill have to format my hard drive. As mentioned, target disk mode lets your mac be used as an external hard disk connected to another mac. You can then follow the steps in this article to start up.
Target disk mode fully supports both thunderbolt and firewire connections though not usb. This reduced power draw helps preserve the battery life of the mac you plug the drive into. Disk utility has always been able to create clones, although the app refers to the process as restore, as in restoring data from a source drive to a target drive. How to select a different startup disk apple support.
Apr 06, 2020 by default, your mac starts up from its builtin hard disk, but a startup disk can be any storage device that contains an operating system compatible with your mac. Target disk mode works with macs, so youll need two macs for this. Itd be nice to be able to scan this drive and remove that malware while in target disk mode. Hi, i need to connect a late 20 macbook pro to a late 2009 imac in target mode so that the imac can search the hard drive of the macbook. Instead, the computers internal and external hard drives are simply mounted on a connected computer. I just picked up a 20 mac pro 6 and was hoping to use it in conjunction with my 2017 imac so i could boot either the mac pro or imac in target disk and utilize the imac as a monitor for both systems only to find that imacs w retinas dont support target display mode. Instead, the macs firmware enables its drives to behave as a scsi, firewire, thunderbolt andor usbc external mass storage device a mac booted in target mode can. Boot your mac in target disk mode for quick file transfers. To find your best external hard drive for mac, youll want to decide how quickly you want to save and retrieve data. You would need to change the hard disk and folders name according to those inside your imac and external drive. Dec 06, 2011 with a mac safely in target disk mode, its hard drive contents can be read from another computer and it is essentially reduced to the role of external hard drive, from which it can be booted from, and an operating system can even be installed. Boot a sick mac into target disk mode for troubleshooting. Looking to transfer huge files between two macs as fast as possible. Target disk mode allows you to perform the same process, while skipping the disassembly of the mac and the installation of the drive in an external enclosure.
Start up from a netboot server, if your mac supports network startup volumes. As the target mac appears as an external storage drive on the host mac via the target disk mode, you can access the target mac via the host and transfer large files easily and efficiently. Click the startup disk icon and click the target disk mode button to restart your mac in target disk mode. Disabled in macos mojave or later, or when using a firmware password. Read on below for some tips on getting started with target disk mode. Advertisement by connecting two macs together in this way, you can quickly transfer files, migrate your data to a new mac, or access your startup disk when macos refuses to boot. Until recently, you enabled target disk mode by connecting. All the keyboard shortcuts you can use when starting up your mac. Be sure to select the external drive as the target location before clicking save. While drives are sold as plugandplay, formatting prior to use will give you optimal performance and compatibility with your mac. Target disk mode mac als thunderbolt oder firewirefestplatte. Target disk mode is a feature that allows a mac to act as an external hard drive. Apple article on installing osx on an external hard drive so you. Target disk mode has several uses in correlation to disk drill and in general.
Macs can boot into a target disk mode that causes them to function like an external hard drive. How to boot your mac in target disk mode for easy file. Using imac boot drive as external disk target mode. In target disk mode, your mac computer can serve as an external hard drive that can be viewed and modified from another system. Backup to external in recovery mode terminal or time machine. If this works, the mac hard drive will appear as a mounted drive on the other mac. To enter target disk mode, click the apple menu and select system preferences. But if they dont get it done for you, you might want to turn to one of the big guns. How to boot a mac into target disk mode tdm think of target disk mode as if you are turning your mac into an external hard drive. Mac target disk mode includes usb the ivanexpert mac blog. You can also enter target disk mode by rebooting your mac and holding down the t key as it boots. Transfer files between two mac computers using target disk mode. Whenever i replace the boot disk of a mac my routine is to restart the mac in target disk mode, connect it to another mac, and use superduper. If neither of those work, find another mac, connect it to your mac with firewire or thunderbolt cable.
Whether you are dealing with a macbook pro, macbook air, or imac, the steps to run target disk mode and scan the hard drive would be the same. Because it is a simple copy and paste command, you dont. How to clone your mac so you can use it as a backup imore. Ive put it in target disk mode, and attached to my machine. Target disk mode is a very handy feature available to use with mac s that have thunderbolt or firewire ports, and it allows you to use one mac as an external drive on another host machine. This incredibly useful feature makes troubleshooting, installations, large file transfers, and critical backups extremely easy and very fast. Macs target disk mode allows you to quickly transfer files to another mac. Hold down the command and r keys as soon as the system restarts to enter recovery mode. In the bestcase scenario, you have a second mac available, and both macs have either a firewire or thunderbolt port.