Comments on: Yes, USB Target Disk Mode is Needed… Badly.

By: thomas seaman

thomas seaman — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 21:40:54 +0000

Macbook air is my favorite except for this issue of no target mode… especially as the new ones (I was told) have no discrete HD that can be removed for rescue! I find it just insanely stupid and wonder what could be their reason, maybe so they will sell another one instead of have one be repairable? But it just leads me to not even buying it at all!
I’m ready to upgrade but have waited to see if the newer macbook air had target mode. So far I have not found a way, so therefore have not bought a new computer. I’m still using my 12″ g4 powerbook, it is starting to be old enough to really want to upgrade, but I value target mode way to much to get anything without it…
Please if anyone finds a way to effectively put the Air into target mode, please come tell us how!
A new kind of cable, or anything…

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:38:27 +0000

On enclosures for the MacBook Air hard drive, seems like they do exist:
http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=80000CFD-1265298493
http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=80000D7A-1270043844

By: Christopher Price

Christopher Price — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 02:44:19 +0000

A-A cables typically serve as extension cables. As I noted above, you would need one of those “in the middle” chipsets to handle communications… but an Apple-built cable that communicated with a driver in EFI is certainly possible.

As to supporting G3′s, sorry, that’s dreaming… er… hallucinating. It would be stupid of Apple to spend time going back and adding TDM to a firmware platform (OpenFirmware) that they don’t support anymore.

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:36:49 +0000

I would love usb TDM in all of the mac’s including G3′s that would make my life so easy, I have seen a cable that is USB A-A and there is no box in the middle, its A-A (the end you plug in to the computer) I am hoping apple alows us to do that, or put fire wire back in all of the line of computers, or make usb TDM in all of the computers

By: Marcel Dietzmann

Marcel Dietzmann — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:16:36 +0000

I agree, the Target Disk Mode is essential for support! Apple, add USB and/or Ethernet Target Disk Mode into EFI!

By: Andreas Carlsson

Andreas Carlsson — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:30:48 +0000

YES – USB Target Mode IS needed.

Please please please Apple – Fix this. Nowadays it takes us one day, what took one hour before.

By: Christopher Price

Christopher Price — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:42:28 +0000

Depends on the Mac. The MacBook 13-inch and the MacBook Air are the only two systems without TDM (for now).

For the MacBook 13-inch, it’s pretty simple. The hard drive is easy to remove, and I’d suggest that any tech-savvy owner that runs/admins one have a 2.5-inch SATA-to-USB adapter. That will let you plug the drive directly into another system, and try to recover data from it.

For the MacBook Air, removing the hard drive probably isn’t an option (since the drive uses a special connector). So, you’re going to be stuck with using a USB 2.0 hard drive with a copy of OS X installed on it. Then, you’ll just have to cross your fingers that the drive failure isn’t bad enough to screw with the boot process from the USB drive.

A USB 2.0 hard drive (with OS X installed) should be able to boot any Intel-based Mac, so it’s a good idea for any sys admin to have a spare install ready (and up-to-date) for emergency use.

By: Tree Man

Tree Man — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:55:30 +0000

So in anybodies’ expert opinion… what is the “new/best” alternative to TDM when i comes to servicing the new macs quickly and effectively?

By: Modo Target, el modo Dios de OS X, Carrero

Modo Target, el modo Dios de OS X, Carrero — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:11:07 +0000

[...] lo ha probado, quizás sea la razón de eliminar el puerto en algunos equipos. Parece ser que de momento no, pero es realmente [...]

By: Frank

Frank — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:47:41 +0000

I couldn’t agree more about the need for USB Target Mode. I support over 130 macs at a small school – laptops with a few desktops and servers. I use Target Mode for support EVERY day. It’s not unusual that a laptop will not boot, but it’s drive will mount in Target Mode with no problem, or at least be accessible to another Mac for repair or recovery with Disk Utility, Diskwarrior or Data Rescue II. It also makes quick manual data backups or migrating a student to a new machine much easier. In the future I will need to pull drives to do what I currently do with target mode or rework my support procedures.
Time for Apple to Think Different on this issue.