How I got into my MacBook Pro after the screen died.
Posted on onsdag, mars 04, 2009 @ 02:25:18 by david
The day my screen died I was freaking out a bit. I needed to get some work done, but how do I get at the files I need?
Target Disk Mode
I read online in the Apple Support area about a way to mount another Mac by using a FireWire cable. COOL!
Its called Target Disk Mode.... so that solves the backup situation.
How to use FireWire target disk mode
I looked around and found this article about how to use FireWire target disk mode, finding the hard drive of the MacBook Pro using a firewire cable and the "T" key :)
Luckily I have a Mac Mini here running Leopard... I hooked up the monitor to that and started it up. Normal boot and everything.
I found a FireWire 400 cable and plugged it into the Mac Mini and the MacBook Pro.
I fired up the MacBook Pro and held down the "T" key...
Magic! The computer shows up like an external drive on my Mac Mini desktop.
So I took immediate backups to our file server here at work and installed the necessary apps to the Mac Mini.
Chicken of the VNC
Since I am now working on a Mac mini and the MacBook Pro is sitting beside it, I decided to see if I could work on the notebook through some sort of VNC or some other remote access.
I had been using Chicken of the VNC between these two machines before to control the Mac mini from the MacBook Pro, but now I needed to go the other way around.
Working through VNC was TOO SLOW... and eventually I had to give it up.
Screen Sharing
All Macs as with PCs come with a screen sharing app. So one day in Feb. I decided to fireup the MacBook Pro and I noticed it showed up in the list of computers on the same network. I clicked on it and noticed the "Share Screen" under its name. Hmm..
So I typed in the admin password and WAHOO! I was in without using Chicken of the VNC... now I wonder why I every intstalled it :)
This screen sharing app is a lot faster, still not real-time, but I didn't expect that either.
The past few weeks now I have been working off of the two computers, synching as normal with my iPhone and the MacBook Pro and using the Mac mini for production.
A glimmer of hope
Today I read about how my machine could be fixed.... The black screen of death may soon be fixed!
MacBook Pro: Distorted video or no video issues
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377
If you are having the same Black Screen of Death issues, take a copy of this down to the Apple Store / Retailer near you and get this fixed.
