![does a mac in target disk mode mount in windows does a mac in target disk mode mount in windows](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d487b7c8f1b720001c0140f/1565193881048-BC435BN5BES5V1K7M094/recover-mac-hard-drive-using-target-disk-mode.jpg)
- #DOES A MAC IN TARGET DISK MODE MOUNT IN WINDOWS DRIVERS#
- #DOES A MAC IN TARGET DISK MODE MOUNT IN WINDOWS UPDATE#
- #DOES A MAC IN TARGET DISK MODE MOUNT IN WINDOWS PRO#
Once your Macs are connected, shut them both down.
#DOES A MAC IN TARGET DISK MODE MOUNT IN WINDOWS PRO#
In our example, we'll use a 2012 Retina MacBook Pro (left) as the host to boot a 2011 MacBook Air (right) as the target. Note that TDM will still work if you have to use a FireWire adapter, such as when connecting a 2010 MacBook Pro’s native FireWire 800 port to a 2013 MacBook Air using a Thunderbolt-to-FireWire adapter. With Thunderbolt a relatively new addition to the Mac, however, you’ll likely find that FireWire is far more ubiquitous. If available, Thunderbolt will provide the fastest experience, especially when used with Macs that have internal solid state drives instead of mechanical hard drives.
![does a mac in target disk mode mount in windows does a mac in target disk mode mount in windows](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vshen-ZvSMA/maxresdefault.jpg)
#DOES A MAC IN TARGET DISK MODE MOUNT IN WINDOWS DRIVERS#
So if your host Mac is a new 2013 Haswell-based MacBook Air, for example, and your target Mac’s hard drive has OS X 10.7 Lion installed, you won’t be able to boot to the target hard drive because Lion doesn’t possess the drivers for the new Haswell hardware.Īssuming that your Macs are compatible, next decide if you’ll use Thunderbolt or FireWire.
#DOES A MAC IN TARGET DISK MODE MOUNT IN WINDOWS UPDATE#
As you may know, with very few exceptions, Apple does not update older versions of OS X to support newer hardware. To accomplish this, first make sure that your “target” Mac (the one you’ll configure for Target Disk Mode) is running a version of OS X equal to or greater than the “host” Mac. In Ken’s situation, he would put the Mac mini into Target Disk Mode, attach it to his MacBook Pro using FireWire or Thunderbolt, and then boot the MacBook using the mini’s hard drive, producing the same basic result as if he had physically removed the mini’s drive and installed it in his MacBook. From a user perspective, the internal drives of a TDM-connected Mac appear indistinguishable from those of an external drive enclosure.īut an even more interesting aspect of TDM is that it allows a user to view another Mac’s hard drive as a potential boot drive, and to boot natively into OS X with a combination of one computer’s hardware and another computer’s software. If a Mac won’t boot, a user can connect it to a working Mac, initiate Target Disk Mode, and then, if the hard drive is still functioning, view the drive’s contents. TDM is most often used to help diagnose malfunctioning Macs.
![does a mac in target disk mode mount in windows does a mac in target disk mode mount in windows](https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/img_552856facd0c2.png)
TDM allows a user to connect two Macs using either FireWire or Thunderbolt, allowing one Mac to access the other’s internal drives as if they were external FireWire or Thunderbolt drives. The answer to your question arrives courtesy of a feature called Target Disk Mode (TDM), which Apple introduced way back in 1991 with the PowerBook 100.