Troubles with G4 PowerMac and Target Disk Mode

JoeCanadian · Dec 4th, 2005, 06:16 PM

I have an older Gigabit G4 PowerMac which is running the current OS X 10.4.3, and a recently purchased iBook G4. I want to use the Migration Assistant on the iBook to copy over my stuff from the PowerMac. I have been able to restart the PowerMac in TDM, and I get the firewire icon on the screen. However, when I plug the firewire cable into the iBook, the firewire disk appears on the desktop, but when I click on it, I get the spinning beachball.

I tried things the other way around; I rebooted the new iBook into TDM and attached the firewire cable to the old PowerMac and the disk icon appeared, and I was able to open it without problems.

I originally was using the Migration Assistant software on the iBook, but would never get past the screen where you reboot the old machine into TDM. I would sense the machine rebooted, but it sat waiting for the disks to show up even though I could see the icon on the desktop. That is why I tried the TDM stuff without the software; to make sure it wasn't the Migration Assistant software's fault.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to proceed? Could my networks settings on the PowerMac be interfering with it when it is in TDM? Any help or suggestions on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated.

JC

MacDoc · Dec 4th, 2005, 08:21 PM

Your firmware on the Gigabit may not be up to date. Should be 4.2.8

Oddly you should be able to boot the G4 tower with the iBook as the boot drive and do it that way - just make sure you don't shut the iBook down - it needs to stay in Target mode.
Choose the iBook as the startup drive.

JoeCanadian · Dec 4th, 2005, 11:14 PM

Thanks for your help Mac Doc. The PowerMac appears to have current firmware; in fact the Boot Rom version from within the Inspector app is a number greater than 4.2.8. Perhaps that is not the same number you were speaking of, but I managed to solve this another way.

Your idea to use the disk on the iBook made me realise I could clone my PowerMac disk to an external F/W disk I had via the Disk Utility. I then pointed the Migration Assistant to that disk and everything worked like a charm.

Thanks for the tip.

MacDoc · Dec 5th, 2005, 12:07 AM

Good glad it worked out - that's odd about the firmware - some of the upgrade companies are putting out their own firmware - that might be the target mode issue.