OS X Tip – Target Mode

Have you ever wanted to quickly copy data from one Macintosh to another Macintosh? Let’s assume you purchased a new Mac and you want to copy all your data over to your new Mac and did not want to hassle setting up a network.

While booting your old Mac, hold down the ‘T’ key, which stands for target Mode. In a few seconds the Mac will display a Firewire Icon (above) on the screen. Next, connect your Old Mac to your new Mac together with a firewire cable.

On the new Mac, you will see your old Mac’s hard drive appear on the desktop. From there, you can copy data around. Think of it as the old ‘Target’ Mac is treated as an external firewire drive. In fact, if you were to put a CD or DVD into the old Mac, it will appear in the desktop on the new Mac also.

One last thing. You will notice when you install OS X, you have the option to migrate from another Macintosh. This is what you will do to connect the two computers together.