firewire iceBook to G4 Cube

T

thisbechuck

Mac-ing
hey, i just bought an iceBook from a friend and the system software on it is really messed up. i dont want to try to find my system CD's just yet, so i was fooling around with it, and wondering what would happen if i connected it to my G4 cube via firewire. I dont want to fry the thing or do something really bad, but would they be able to access each others hard disks and allow me to boot up the iceBook from the G4's harddrive? tell me if this is a bad idea... before curiosity kills the cat so to speak...
 
actually 1 more thing I want to try... since it's used, when i open the screen i get this horrible squeaking sound of plastic against plastic. I was wondering how i could stop this. i'd put a few drops of oil on it, or a spray of WD-40, but i noticed that there is a ventilation screen right under the part that joins the screen to the rest of the laptop. I suppose just a strip of plastic coated paper would do the trick there, but if i do put oil on that conjunction, should i be afraid of damaging the wires that connect the screen to the computer? please get back to me soon
 
i've now tried hooking it up to my firewire cd burner with the mac os X disk, and my mac os 9.1 disk for my cube to no avail. the cube disk reveals a blank beige screen (what you see before the "mac os 9.1", and the os X disk shows the spinning wheel on a blue background with a picture of a broken system folder in the center. I know what the problem is... it's that the prior user stuffed all the system folders in one location and the computer cant find them... if i was able to get to view the hard disk (maybe by hooking it via firewire to my cube) i could move the system folder to it's regular position. Please, any help much appreciated.
 
Well I'm not sure about the FireWire or software problems you're having, but to stop the squeeking on your 'book: The best thing I have found is to get a little bottle of bike chain lube. White Lightening, Pedro's or RaceDay are all good. Just put a drop or two at the connection(s) and work it in by opening and closing the lid several times.

I've found the chain lube to work good because a) it's easy to apply b) it's cheap at around $3 and c) it's greaseless so it won't attract dirt and debris
 
I think you can use FireWire to create a "Target Disk Mode" - this is either here or on the Apple Knowledge Base: look for "Target Disk mode" for the detailed instructions.

Generally, you can power off one mac (lets say it was your cube), plug the firewire lead in between them, then start up the cube again holding some kind of key combination. The cube's startup disk will then be mounted as a disk on the desktop of your iceBook, and the Cube will pretend to be a FireWire drive.
Of course, you can work that the other way, too.

I don't think thats precisely what you were looking for, but it sounds like its pretty close.
 
Hi,

FireWire-target disk mode is activated when you press the "t" key while starting up the mac whose disk should appear on the other mac. It works under 9 or X (doesn't matter which system is on which mac) and is super-fast (firewire).
 
nice, thank you very very much, i am forever obliged to you. i am now very happily typing away at my beautiful iceBook... what a success story, huh?
 
ok, I'll come back to that!

I just know this from the forums as well, since it's nowhere documented. Somewhere in the Apple TIL it is.
 
Another thing you could do, is connect the two computers using an Ethernet (crossover) cable. No rebooting required.
 
if anyone is intersted, I'd love to see a how-to on connecting two computers with an ethernet-crossover cable. Are most standard ethernet cables, crossover cables? Say the one going between my comp and cable modem?

BTW, firewire disk target mode is the best thing ever, great for backing up and troubleshooting unbootable systems.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top