FireWire isn't working

[josbell2515]

Hi all,
A couple of weeks ago I got a new iBook and I wanted to get some of the data off of my old one. I turned on the other one and the hard drive for that one never showed up on my new one's desktop. 😕 Also, the old one's screen isn't working, but I've been able to get that one's hard drive to show up on another Mac's desktop.
How can I fix this? This is kinda confusing...

 

[Altemose]

Hi all,
A couple of weeks ago I got a new iBook and I wanted to get some of the data off of my old one. I turned on the other one and the hard drive for that one never showed up on my new one's desktop. 😕 Also, the old one's screen isn't working, but I've been able to get that one's hard drive to show up on another Mac's desktop.
How can I fix this? This is kinda confusing...

You need to hold T on the busted Mac at boot.

 

[josbell2515]

Oh yeah, I forgot that when I was describing the issue.
Holding down "T" when starting the broken one doesn't do anything...

 

[poiihy]

Oh yeah, I forgot that when I was describing the issue.
Holding down "T" when starting the broken one doesn't do anything...

It should show a target disk mode screen but because the screen is broken you don't know if it works. Hold it for long enough, like 10 seconds to be sure. If that doesn't work then plug in an external monitor (assuming the display is bad and not the gpu).

 

[josbell2515]

About that...

I'll try to see if holding down T longer works. After the screen broke on that one I tried hooking it up to an external monitor and nothing showed up, so I guess it might be the GPU... 😕
There has to be a way around this, as I've tried putting the computer into Target Disk Mode without a display and it worked.

 

[josbell2515]

I think I might know what happened

So I did some research and it turns out that the old Mac isn't the problem - it's the current one that I have. System Profiler says that it can't find any FireWire devices, even when there's nothing in there, possibly meaning that it's failed. 🙁
Is there a way that I can fix this? Better yet, is there another way that I can get my data off of the old computer?

 

[poiihy]

So I did some research and it turns out that the old Mac isn't the problem - it's the current one that I have. System Profiler says that it can't find any FireWire devices, even when there's nothing in there, possibly meaning that it's failed. 🙁
Is there a way that I can fix this? Better yet, is there another way that I can get my data off of the old computer?

That is really weird. The FireWire is integrated onto the logic board. If it does not work then that is weird.

To get your data off, take the hard drive out and put it in an enclosure. Either this or connect your machine to an external monitor and transfer the data through ethernet or wifi or usb stick or disk.

 

[Hrududu]

I'm just gonna go back to basic troubleshooting here. Are you positive your keyboard is good? Have you tried target disk booting using an external USB keyboard instead of the built in one?

 

[weckart]

So I did some research and it turns out that the old Mac isn't the problem - it's the current one that I have. System Profiler says that it can't find any FireWire devices, even when there's nothing in there, possibly meaning that it's failed. 🙁
Is there a way that I can fix this? Better yet, is there another way that I can get my data off of the old computer?

It is possible for System Profiler not to report an internal hardware device if the relevant support in the installed OS is missing. I had this with a TiBook and OS9 because the version of OS9 installed was not the right one for the the TiBook. I would assume with OS X it is less likely. Running your AHT disc or using the show-devs command via Open Firmware would confirm whether or not your internal device has croaked.