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megasad · Feb 12, 2005, 02:25 PM

At first I thought I had stumbled upon something amazing; starting my iBook in FireWire Target Disk Mode and then connecting it to my friend's Windows XP laptop, via a 6-4 pin FireWire cable, results in my iBook's hard drive showing up as an external hard drive in Windows Explorer.

Then I did a search here and found out that people have known this for a long time now. For years I had assumed that it simply would not work, and then I tried it and it did.

So, anyway, when I thought I had discovered something amazing, I took a screenshot:

Yippee.

And the reason I have still posted this thread was that it might be helpful to anyone else who wants to do the same thing but had assumed it was impossible.

The only caveat; you need some sort of HFS+ reading software/driver installed on the Windows machine. MacDrive was installed on the laptop, that my friend might use my external FireWire hard drive. But it is much easier to use the iBook, as it does not need an external power supply and such. Hoo-hah.

Detrius · Feb 12, 2005, 05:16 PM

Target disk mode simply tells the machine to pretend to be a FireWire hard drive. Since Windows XP supports FireWire hard drives, this would work. Obviously Windows XP does not support HFS+, so you would have to do something about that.

megasad · Feb 12, 2005, 07:24 PM

Originally posted by Detrius:
Target disk mode simply tells the machine to pretend to be a FireWire hard drive. Since Windows XP supports FireWire hard drives, this would work. Obviously Windows XP does not support HFS+, so you would have to do something about that.

Exactly. It's so damn obvious. I just never tried plugging one into the other.

skybolt · Feb 14, 2005, 12:47 PM

Does this work the same way the other way around? For instance, I want to connect my PB to my husband's PC (XP) via firewire and retrieve some pictures off of his and onto mine. I had the idea that if I plugged the firewire into my PB and his PC, then started his PC that it would show up on my PB as a drive. Then I could open it and drag the photos over. Or am I thinking wishfully?

Thanks in advance!

tooki · Feb 14, 2005, 01:03 PM

PCs don't have the smarts to do target disk mode, it has to be present in the firmware, and probably required a bit of magic drivers.

I don't see what's so special about Windows XP mounting a FireWire disk -- it's been able to do that for a while, and without a third-party product, it can't mount a Mac disk. No miracle or great discovery that I can see.

tooki

megasad · Feb 14, 2005, 03:39 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
I don't see what's so special about Windows XP mounting a FireWire disk -- it's been able to do that for a while, and without a third-party product, it can't mount a Mac disk. No miracle or great discovery that I can see.

When I first found out about FireWire Target Disk Mode, that's what I assumed it did; made the Mac into an external FireWire hard drive, nothing more, nothing less. Then, at some point after that, I came to the conclusion that it didn't. I don't know why. Maybe something I read or inferred or made up. Anyway, the only point of this thread was to show other people, who might not have realised that they could do this, that they can do this.

theolein · Feb 14, 2005, 08:37 PM

Originally posted by skybolt:
Does this work the same way the other way around? For instance, I want to connect my PB to my husband's PC (XP) via firewire and retrieve some pictures off of his and onto mine. I had the idea that if I plugged the firewire into my PB and his PC, then started his PC that it would show up on my PB as a drive. Then I could open it and drag the photos over. Or am I thinking wishfully?

Thanks in advance!

You could just mount the PB and copy files onto it, providing you have software that can read hfs+ formatted disks. If you don't a small partition on your PB formatted as FAT would probably also work.

The easiest is probably just using ftp or http though. If your husband's computer has XP Pro, you can start up IIS - the webserver - and just get the files off his machine with the browser.

The other option is using OSX's built in windows networking. You'll need to share a windows directory to do that and you'll get to it using the connect to server command in the finder.

Wiskedjak · Feb 14, 2005, 08:55 PM

I've been trying to do this for a while with an old PowerBook and SCSI target mode. PC has, of course, a SCSI port and MacDrive, but the PC doesn't see the PB.

skybolt · Feb 14, 2005, 09:14 PM

Thanks theolein - but we have tried networking, and just can't make it work. We have read and tried so many different ideas, but just have not had any success. I thought if the firewire idea would work, it would just be so simple. However, we did try that tonight, and, of course, no go. He is running XP Home, not pro. Wish I could get this silly thing to work! Thanks again, and would be happy to get more ideas!

rhogue islander · Feb 14, 2005, 10:04 PM

Try reading this thread on OS X and Windows networking and see if it doesn't help.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=54704

skybolt · Feb 15, 2005, 12:05 PM

Thanks, rhouge Islander!! Will try that and post back. Sure hope I can get that to work!