Target Disk Mode and Ethernet

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Level 1

46 points

Target Disk Mode and Ethernet

I am going to try to keep this as simple as possible.

• I collect old Macs from seniors in an aging-in-place community, erase their drives, reinstall a macOS, and pass them on to a charity.

• On very old Macs, specifically a 2010 MB Pro with an optical drive, I have learned that I need to boot from the Install DVD, erase the HD, and then install the macOS. It can't be done by booting in Recovery Mode and erasing and reinstalling a macOS.

• A senior myself, I forgot the above, restarted yet another donated 2010 MB Pro in Recovery Mode, erased the HD, then tried and failed to reinstall the macOS.

• The 2010 MB Pro originally came with Snow Leopard and I have a Snow Leopard install disk.

• I booted with the SL install disk holding down the C key. Got the spinning gear wheel and Apple logo but after a minute or so it went straight to kernel panic (screen in 5 different languages.).

• The computer will boot in Target Disk Mode plus, fortunately, I have another 2010 MB Pro ready for donation and both these computers have an ethernet port.

• Would it be possible to link them together using Target Disk Mode and get a macOS onto the one giving me problems or can anyone suggest any other methods for getting a macOS onto this computer?

Posted on Nov 18, 2022 2:45 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

lkshean

Level 2

152 points

Nov 18, 2022 3:00 AM in response to Room101A

Assuming it is not due to some kind of hardware issue with the first Mac, you should be able to get SL installed by setting the first Mac in target disk and second Mac loading SL installer DVD. 2010 MacBook Pros are with Firewire, you need FW cable to do this, target disk does not work over ethernet. Nonetheless, you also need to be sure that the DVD is still in good condition to install this way.

Another possible way is to set the first Mac in target disk, then boot normally into second Mac and use Disk Utility to clone the startup drive of the second Mac to the first Mac.

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Answer 2

HWTech

Level 9

60,200 points

Nov 18, 2022 8:00 AM in response to Room101A

@Ikshean's advice has been spot on. If you are doing this quite regularly, then I suggest you create a bootable macOS 10.11 and 10.13 USB installer to keep on hand to avoid these difficulties. You may need later versions if you are dealing with newer models as well such as 10.15 -- these three are the highest OS certain models can use so it covers models from Late 2007 to 2019. If you have a large enough USB stick you can have multiple macOS USB installers on it. I believe you really only need about 20GB (maybe less) for each macOS partition containing the bootable installer. It helps if you name each partition with the installer name to help keep track of each partition.

Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

Also, before doing all the work, you should check the health of the internal hard drive on these laptops. If they had a lot of use, then the drive may be worn out or even failing. Having an external USB3 macOS boot drive (full OS) can allow you to verify basic hardware functionality and also to run DriveDx to check the health of the hard drive. "Warning" or "Failing" notices mean the hard drive is worn out or failing respectively. A worn out drive usually ends up having a lot of odd performance issues. Things are a bit different with SSDs since not all warning or failing notices indicate a problem. Manual inspection and interpretation of the health report is necessary for properly assessing the health of an SSD. It is also possible to check the health of the drive by creating & using a bootable Knoppix Linux USB stick and using the included GSmartControl app, but this requires a manual review & interpretation of the health report (easier to do with hard drives than SSDs). Knoppix can boot any 2007 to 2015 Mac just fine to allow testing.

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Answer 3

Room101A Author

Level 1

46 points

Nov 18, 2022 4:27 AM in response to lkshean

May I impose upon you to point out what I am doing wrong?

I connected the two 2010 MB Pros via FW & the HD of the target MBP appears on the desktop of the other MBP as Untitled.

I put the Snow Leopard install disk into the optical drive of the MBP not in TDM, launched it and got this [You can't use this version of the application "Install Mac OS X.app 'with this version of macOS. You have "install Mac OS X.App" 2.3.1

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Answer 4

Room101A Author

Level 1

46 points

Nov 18, 2022 4:36 AM in response to lkshean

I think I got it:

Connected them via FW cable with problematic mbp booted in TDM. Went to DU on mbp1, chose Restore, chose mac OS X Install DVD as the Restore from choice and got:

Validating target…

Validating source…

Validating sizes…

Restoring

Will report back what happens for anyone else who may stumble on this thread looking for help.

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Answer 5

lkshean

Level 2

152 points

Nov 18, 2022 5:02 AM in response to Room101A

I suspect you can’t double click on the installer app on DVD from a Mac with slightly newer OS already running on it, which may be the reason why it won’t allow installation.

I was assuming you will put the first Mac in target disk mode, start your second Mac with the DVD (bypass HDD OS), then install the OS to the first Mac (Untitled).

I hope the clone method works, otherwise you may have to spend more time installing from DVD…

Good luck 👍

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Answer 6

Room101A Author

Level 1

46 points

Nov 18, 2022 5:14 AM in response to lkshean

Well...defeated again.

About 40' or so I got a [Restore process is complete, click Done to continue]

I ejected the problematic MBP icon from the desktop of the good MBP, disconnected the FW cables, shut down and restarted the problematic MBP, got the apple logo, the gearwheel, and once again the kernel panic screen.

BTW, when started in TDM, I ran First Aid on the problematic MBP and it passed.

I just downloaded SuperDuper. I'll try cloning next.

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Answer 7

Room101A Author

Level 1

46 points

Nov 18, 2022 9:15 AM in response to HWTech

Thank you for that fulsome feedback and confirming that I am on track following @Ikshean's advice.

I never know what these seniors are going to donate. This is, however, the second 2010 MB Pro with an optical drive that I have received. The last time, I learned to boot these from a Snow Leopard Install DVD, because that's what these machines came with, erase the HD and then upgrade to the latest macOS they can handle.

Even though it's an old machine, since these are going to a local charity which is helping to resettle those Afghans who worked as interpreters, etc., for US troops when they were in Afghanistan, these optical drives could be great for free DVDs they can borrow from the local libraries, language-learning DVDs, etc.

Great idea on running DriveX to check the health of their drives; I had been using DU's First-Aid function. I will check out Knoppix also.

Right now, I am cloning the machine's HD to an external SSD drive with an aim to Connecting it to the Mac and booting holding down the Option key.

Think that will work?

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Answer 8

Room101A Author

Level 1

46 points

Nov 18, 2022 4:02 AM in response to lkshean

I have quite a number of old firewire cables but there are no firewire ports on these 2010 MB Pros. I don't understand how to make the connection ?

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Answer 9

Room101A Author

Level 1

46 points

Nov 18, 2022 4:10 AM in response to lkshean

Whoa! I was wrong. I checked the specs and both have a FW 800 port and I have a FW to FW 800 cable.

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Target Disk Mode and Ethernet

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