Recycled Computing

Tiger Installation and User Migration with Target Disk Mode

- 2010.12.01

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Short link: http://bit.ly/gQlyCr

Every once in a while you get a free computer. In my case, it was a Snow White iMac with a G3 processor and, fortunately enough, I had a use for it. I use my old Sage iMac G3 as a digital jukebox that outputs to my home stereo.

The Show White has a stronger processor (600 MHz vs. 450 MHz) and a larger hard drive (40 GB vs. 20 GB), so it is a little bit of an upgrade.

How to migrate everything to the new iMac? The Snow White does not possess a DVD drive, how would I install Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on it (the installation disc requires a DVD drive)?

Simple.

Old Tech

What I had on my side was a FireWire 400 cable and good old Target Disk Mode. Target Disk Mode makes the hard drive in your target Mac (in this case, my Snow White iMac) accessible from another Mac with FireWire (in this case, my PowerBook G4, which has a DVD drive and a FireWire port, running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard).

G3 iMac in Target Disk Mode.

The process begins with both computers off: Make sure any FireWire devices are disconnected and then connect the two Macs using a FireWire cable. I started up the Snow White and held down the T key on the keyboard to enable Target Disk Mode, and the Snow White booted in Disk Mode.

I placed my Tiger install disc in the PowerBook's DVD drive.

Wait a minute, Sparky! Check to make sure that your target computer's (Snow White) hard drive appears on the desktop of the computer with the installation disk in it (PowerBook G4). If it's not there, make sure that you have the FireWire cable attached to both computers and that the target computer's screen has the Target Disk Mode symbol dancing around a blue screen.

Now you can click on the Install button on the Tiger install disc.

The install disc will restart your host computer (PowerBook G4) and start the installation process. At one point, you will be prompted to choose the disk on which to install OS X. You want to pick the target computer's hard drive (Snow White), not the host computer's drive.

Go off and learn Finnish or something.

When the installation is finished, shut down both computers. I disconnected the FireWire cable from the host computer (in my case, the PowerBook G4) and, while the Snow White iMac started the welcome spiel, I attached the FireWire cable to my old Sage iMac and started it up in Target Disk Mode.

When the computer with the fresh OS X installation asks if you want to transfer your settings from another Mac, you are all set!

Sayonara, FireWire

Unfortunately, FireWire is going the way of the dinosaur. What with USB 3.0 looming on the horizon and Apple making it's laptops more energy efficient* and more compact, I'm afraid that FireWire will "whither on the vice".

Still, in this application, it serves a real need. Besides, all of the computers in this situation are equipped with USB 1.0 and 1.1. Rather slow for this sort of data transfer.

* A single USB 2.0 port must be able to provide 5V at 500 mA for bus-powered devices, and recent MacBooks with two ports only provide this much power on one port, for a 600 mA (3W) maximum draw. USB 3.0 will allow power draw of up to 900 mA (4.5W) for a bus-powered device. Apple notebooks typically provide 9V at 9W (1000 mA), so it's easy to see why Apple is pushing USB 2.0 with its lower power requirements over FireWire or USB 3.0 on its notebooks.

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