My MacBook Pro is not starting up, but that's another problem leading to this one.
I have the MBP connected to my iMac via a Thunsderbolt cable and started the MBP while holding down T. The gray screen appears with two floating icons: the Thunderbolt icon with a abckground circle, and the Firewire icon.
However, the host iMac does not show the MBP.
What am I missing?
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)
So broad general advice for others with this problem might be to check FINDER preferences, and make sure you told it to show you Network Drives as well as External Drives, both in the SideBar and on the Desktop.
And don't give up until you have opened the Network Icon, because your Target disks might be showing there.
I have now tried with a working MBAir as a target drive. Once again a floating ThunderBolt (but no FireWire) icon on a circular field appears on the MBAir but my iMac does not show it in Finder nor Disk Utilities.
In no instances is there a strike thru on any of the icons.
The ThunderBolt cable is a white Apple cable with TB plugs on both ends.
Any ideas
Let me try to clarify the situation.
The IMac will not show any of the three laptops (two working, one not starting up normally but able to start up as a target drive.)
The two working laptops work as expected with one as the target drive and the other as the host.
So why is the iMac not able to host (show) any of the working laptops as target computers?
Here is a link. https://support.apple.com/kb/PH19021?locale=en_US If I read this correctly the Imac should be on the MBP off. Then connect the thunderbolt cable and start the MBP with the T key held down till it goes to screen. If that is what you are doing,it should work. it not I have no answer.
Have you ever used the thunderbolt port on the Imac for anything else? What if you did a pram reset on the Imac Command/ Option/P/R keys and power button for three chimes/ Or an SMC reset. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295 Apple says that thunderbolt equiped Imac's can use target disk.
the Thunderbolt icon with a background circle
are you sure that's not a circle with a slash through it, as in, "can't do it", no smoking, no left turn ??
what have you got for a ThunderBolt cable?
You know that this entire trick uses the processor and software (in ROM) on the injured Mac, right? A Mac that will not start at all cannot do target disk mode anything -- you would have to remove its drive and put the drive in an enclosure.
Yes, I have proceeded as described in that link to no avail. The only difference is that I am still using Maverick on my machines.
I have jiggled the connections, swapped the two ends, restarted, but nada.
However, using the same procedure I was able to make this work between two MacBook Airs. So why is it working between some computers and not others?
Your post will be on the forums for a long time. Others may find it while searching for solutions to similar problem.
Can you add a summary of what you think solved the problem for you? Was it PRAM Resets? SMC Reset? just using Disk Utility?
Did you not have attached drives set to show on the desktop?
Perhaps I should clarify my not seeing the target drive on my host computer. The following may be a bit sketchy since I was trying so many different things with slight variations to resolve this issue. Also my terminology may not be completely correct. I did not use PRAM nor SMC Resets.
I had looked for the target computer in the leftmost pane of a Finder Windows under Devices in the Columns view; that is typically where mounted external drives appear. My desktop is usually covered by full windows of other applications so I don't see what is there. So, the target computer may have appeared on the Desktop but not in an open Finder Wiindow.
It appeared in Disk Utility (I can't remember if I had to manually mount it) but it still was not showing on the Finder Window. I must have opened a new Window and somehow the target computer appeared in the second column along with other drives and Network. Don't know why.
So, I may or may not have had an issue to begin with; I just wasn't seeing the drive where i expected it to be. I feel a bit foolish about this; that is why I did not provide a fuller explanation earlier which would have exposed my ineptitude.
Once again, thank you all for your contributions to this invaluable resource.
Doh, that makes sense. I was hoping to transfer data that was not backed up before trying to repair the MBP.
I believe it is because your internal drive is damaged and will not mount on the other computers desktop. You will need to pull the drive and mount it externally and try to retrieve data that way.
Hi;
Just an update here. I finally was able to access the data on my MBP by using Disk Utilities on the host computer. Thank you for all for your help.
Chris
target not showing up on host
