Can you boot an internal HDD with OS X as an external drive on another Macbook?
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14-04-2021 - |
Frage
I have a broken 15" 2011 Macbook Pro and am waiting for the replacement to arrive. (It'll be another week; I'm on an island and on a budget.) I know the HDD is fine, though.
A friend is willing to lend me her 2010 17" Macbook Pro. My work environment is complex and I don't want to riddle her system with my updates and patches and shell scripts (and I'd like to avoid the 6 hours plus it would take to set up on a new machine). However, she doesn't want me to replace her MBP's hard drive with mine.
Can I take my HDD (it's a Samsung SSD), get an external USB or FireWire enclosure (I suppose it should be FireWire for speed), and boot OS X from it right away on the 17" MBP?
Lösung
To boot from your HDD:
Get the hardware:
Get a SATA to USB adapter.
- Remove the HDD from your 2011 MacBook.
- Connect it the 2010 MacBook using the SATA adapter.
- Power up the 2011 MacBook and hold the Option key until you see the boot menu appears.
- Select your HDD (you will see its name) and boot from it.
To only access your data:
You can use Target Disk Mode (TDM):
- Connect both MacBooks using the Firewire 800 ports.
- Make sure the 2010 MacBook is running.
- Power on your 2011 MacBook and press CMD+T to start it in TDM.
- Your 2011 MacBook's HDD will appear in the 2010 MacBook's Finder
You should absolutely try to boot your 2011 MacBook's HDD using the TDM method.