How to connect two Macs using FireWire target disk mode

Use a Mac's hard drive(s) like external FireWire hard drives on another Mac to move or backup data.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Two Macs running MacOS X
• A FireWire 400 or 800 cable

1. 
    
   Mac #1

   Assume Mac #1 is your main machine that the external drive will be connected to. Mac #2 is the Mac you want to use as an external hard drive.
   
   Mac #1 should be turned on and Mac #2 should be powered down.

2. 
    
   Mac #2, a separate Mac hard drive mounted as an external FireWire drive

   Connect the FireWire cable to a port on each Mac so the Macs are connected together by the cable.

3. Turn on Mac #2 while holding down the 't' key. You can stop when you see the FireWire drive appear on the desktop of Mac #1. You can now access any of the data on Mac #2.

4. Drag the Mac #2 volume(s) to the trash when you're done. Then you can turn off Mac #2 and unplug the cable.

Tips & Warnings

• This will work with most Macs with FireWire ports running MacOS X
• You can access the volumes from the command line using /Volumes/volume_name/