Target Disk Mode With External Drive

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Level 1

8 points

Target Disk Mode With External Drive

I recently had a hard drive fail in my old MacBook (OS X 10.6); however, I have external drive that is cloned (and bootable), and that's what I was counting on to bring over my user info, data, settings, etc.

I borrowed a family member's MackBook Pro to boot from my cloned external drive, and I was planning on using Setup Assistant instead of Migration Assistant (as I had a user name conflict with Migration Assistant). Setup Assistant wants me to use target disk mode but I don't know if I can do this using my external drive because it has to be rebooted. The problem is that in order to boot from my external drive using the borrowed Mac, I'd have to hold down the option key, and to boot up with TDM I have to restart and boot holding down the "T" key.

Is there a key combination that would allow me to boot from the external drive using TDM?

Posted on Jun 11, 2016 1:46 PM

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Answer 1

Niel

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Level 10

745,993 points

Jun 11, 2016 1:56 PM in response to 61SG

Instead of migrating from a different computer, choose to migrate from a drive.

(142865)

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Answer 2

Jun 13, 2016 6:43 AM in response to 61SG

If the external is a bootable clone, boot from the external and then use your cloning tool to clone the external to the empty internal drive.

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Answer 3

61SG Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 25, 2016 8:28 AM in response to Niel

Thanks, Niel, and sorry for the delayed response.

The reason I did not do that is because, on that opening screen, there is no option to migrate from a drive. I can't remember the exact wording but it's something to the effect of "...from another Mac". Hence why I hooked up the second MacBook.

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Answer 4

61SG Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 25, 2016 8:36 AM in response to Limnos

Thanks, Limnos.

I did some research on this and I seem to remember Bombich (the makers of Carbon Copy Cloner) stating that they did not recommend making a clone in this manner. I will see if I can find the link, though.

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