Target Disk Mode (Macintosh)

For the last few days I have been pissed about not being able to boot an iBook from a USB CD-Drive. Apparently this is only possible by using a firewire external drive. The bigger issue is that God forbid anywhere local have a firewire IDE enclosure... hell, I had a hard enough time finding a firewire cable......
.... Then I learned about something that I will gladly trade the ability to boot from a USB drive. This little gem is called "Target Disk Mode". The uses of this are really endless. Basically any drive in a macintosh computer can be used as an external firewire drive. Yes, you can do backups of your hard drive this way..... AND it allows you to use the DVD drive of another macintosh as a firewire drive.... which means if you have an ibook with a dead optical drive, you can use the drive from another mac by starting that mac in this mode.

1. Make sure that the target computer is turned off. If you are using a PowerBook or iBook as the target computer, you should also plug in its AC power adapter.
2. Use a FireWire cable (6-pin to 6-pin) to connect the target computer to a host computer. The host computer does not need to be turned off.
3. Start up the target computer and immediately press and hold down the T key until the FireWire icon appears. The hard disk of the target computer should become available to the host computer and will likely appear on desktop. (If the target computer is running Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, you can also open System Preferences, choose Startup Disk, and click Target Disk Mode. Then restart the computer and it will start up in Target Disk Mode.)
4. When you are finished copying files, drag the target computer's hard disk icon to the Trash or select Put Away from the File menu (Mac OS 9) or Eject from the File menu (Mac OS X).
5. Press the target computer's power button to turn it off.
6. Unplug the FireWire cable.

Reference Link

Macintosh Boot Commands

I always seem to forget these so I'm putting them here so I know where to find them next time I forget :)

Command-S Boot into Single User Mode
Command-V Boot using "Verbose" mode (shows all kernel and startup console messages)
X Reset startup disk selection and boot into Mac OS X Server
Shift Boot into "Safe Boot" mode, which runs Disk First Aid. A reboot will be required afterward.
Option Boot into Open Firmware to select a boot device
Command-Option-Shift-Delete Bypass internal harddrive on boot
T Boot into Firewire target disk mode
C Boot from the internal optical drive
N Start from the Network (NetBoot)
Command-Option-P-R Reset Parameter RAM (PRAM) and non-volatile RAM (NVRAM)
(mouse button) Eject (internal) removable media

ALSO: if you use open firmware password... you'll need this:
Startup Manager -accessed by pressing the Option key during startup
Enter commands after starting up in Open Firmware -press Command-Option-O-F key combination during startup.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106482

How to troubleshoot a computer with Open Firmware Password enabled
If you cannot access the Open Firmware Password application and need to troubleshoot your computer by:

Resetting the PRAM
Starting up in Single-user mode
Starting up in Verbose mode
Starting from CD-ROM

Then follow these steps:

Start up into Open Firmware by pressing and holding the Command-Option-O-F key combination during startup.
At the Open Firmware prompt, type: reset-nvram
Press Return.
When prompted for your password, enter it and press the Return key. It responds OK.
At the Open Firmware prompt, type: reset-all
Press Return.

The computer restarts and you are now be able to reset the PRAM and startup in Single-user mode, Verbose mode, or from CD-ROM.

Reference Link

Unix Find Tutorial

I found a great reference to using the find command on UNIX/Linux systems. There is a lot of explanation of the mtime, ctime, etc operatives.

In case the site later is taken off-line, I have archived the page in PDF form: Download PDF

Reference Link