Accessing an ibook G4 in target disk mode using firewire from an i386 Ubuntu box

[Michael Hunt]

On Wed, 2004-12-22 at 13:30 -0500, volvoguy wrote in response to
Michael's query on firewire:

> > Can someone help me with steps for accessing an ibook G4 in target disk
> > mode using firewire from an i386 Ubuntu (Warty) box (actually an AMD
> > Athlon XP 1600+ with a VIA chipset as the firewire controller). The
> > drive is detected and all the appropriate modules seem to be loaded and
> > I can mount the partition cleanly, it is just that when I go to copy
> > stuff across the drive seems to hang. Google hasn't really helped me and
> > I was wondering if anyone on the list had any ideas.
> 
> If I'm reading this right and you're just trying to move files from
> one machine to the other, Linux and OS X can both use Samba over a
> network.

Yeah. There is more than one way to skin a cat. I have samba and nfs
setup on my network and could use this or the ibook's CD Burner (or a
256mb USB memory stick that I have) to copy some files around. Fact is
that for the large amount of files I have (5+Gb) these other methods all
have their limitations and well ..... I know the hardware can do this so
I want to make it work.

> If you're trying to get the two to talk to each other over a direct
> Firewire link, that's beyond my knowledge.

It actually is a bit different to that. Target disk mode means that the
ibook acts as big firewire drive. If I was to do this between two macs
it would mean that the target disk mode machine would appear as another
volume on the desktop that you can copy files to and from. Essentially I
am trying to replicate the same under linux, but I think the problem
might be that the drive structure/geometry is not recognised due to the
fact that it was originally setup using apple tools (ie Apple's disk
manager). Anyone else have any ideas ???

Michael Hunt