Comments on: Reinstalling Mac OS X without a DVD Drive – Target Disk Mode

By: Jonnygive5

Jonnygive5 — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 15:55:00 +0000

My problem was similar – an old 700MHz G4 emac without DVD drive and wanting to install osx 10.4 (dvd disks!!) so i used a newer emac with a dvd drive in target mode. I couldnt get the old emac to see the DVD drive using target mode though so i used the OLD system restore disks for osx 10.0.3 to tell the old emac to boot from the target computer’s HD then once booted it saw the DVD drive so i just double clicked the installer!!!
then when the time came to change disc i used the old paper-clip eject on the dvd drive and restarted the computer and held the “T” to keep it in target mode and the old emac recognised the second disc and continued (despite opening its own cd drawer!!)
brilliant – thank you!!

By: Jonnygive5

Jonnygive5 — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 15:49:00 +0000

great – it also works on really OLD emacs – the ones without DVD drives – i used a newer one in target and the shutdown trick also got around the disk change problem.

By: iSnake

iSnake — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 18:41:00 +0000

Thanks a lot. Finally, I managed to reinstall Snow Leopard in my Black MacBook (with dead optical drive).

By: momo

momo — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 21:48:00 +0000

How about if the silver computer doesn’t boot up … ?
When and where would I Pop in the DVD ?

By: aleena

aleena — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 17:36:00 +0000

Thanks for sharing nice article, i like it so much

By: Buy Blank DVD

Buy Blank DVD — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 07:47:00 +0000

I’ve been searching this for a long time. Thanks for sharing.

By: 1TB External Hard Drives

1TB External Hard Drives — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 22:54:00 +0000

Are you trying to use a low power USB port? USB ports in your keyboard or a USB hub that doesn’t have a power supply will NOT have enough power to charge your
pc

By: Dan Taylor

Dan Taylor — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:58:08 +0000

PPC -> Intel = Success
Intel -> PPC = FAIL

By: Michael Sarafian

Michael Sarafian — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:54:29 +0000

I just wanted to clarify. I have a PPC I need to reinstall, so can I do that using an iMac with your trick?

By: Dan Taylor

Dan Taylor — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:09:58 +0000

Hi Rob! Yes, you’re correct…purchasing an external DVD drive would do the trick for everyday usage/burning, but remember, if it’s USB based, you still wouldn’t be able to use it to reinstall the OS. OSX can only boot from firewire based devices.