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From: AES on 28 Jan 2010 20:18
My wife's 2008 vintage MacBook Pro running Leopard has an intermittently
stuck key: sometimes she can operate it using external USB keyboard,
sometimes the built-in keyboard emits an endless string of "X"'s and
blocks everything.

So, I restarted her Pro in Target Disk mode and Firewired it to a 2008
MacBook of mine running Tiger (10.4.11), and the Tiger machine sees the
Leopard's HD just fine.

As a start, we dug into her User home folder on the Leopard Target Disk,
found her Eudora mail folder, clicked on her settings file, and
downloaded her mail just fine (I'm not clear whether my Tiger copy of
Eudora or her Leopard copy of Eudora was actually running).

Questions:

* Using this physical setup, should we be able to go further and log
into her User account (which is physically on the Leopard HD and part of
the Leopard file structure), even though my Tiger machine is still
booted from its own HD and thus running Tiger?

What steps would we follow to do this? (Been afraid to try it myself.)

* Could I maybe reboot my Tiger MacBook from the Leopard system on her
MacBook Pro still operating in Target Disk mode, and essentially provide
her with all her own files and apps?

Again, what steps?

[We're temporarily in the boonies; won't be able to get real repair for
a while. Eudora and Safari are the main apps she needs to use.]
From: nospam on 28 Jan 2010 20:26
In article <siegman-493DB3.17182728012010(a)news.stanford.edu>, AES
<siegman(a)stanford.edu> wrote:

> * Could I maybe reboot my Tiger MacBook from the Leopard system on her
> MacBook Pro still operating in Target Disk mode, and essentially provide
> her with all her own files and apps?

that should work.
>
> Again, what steps?

hold down option when booting and pick the firewire target drive.
From: AES on 28 Jan 2010 20:59
In article <280120102026304823%nospam(a)nospam.invalid>,
nospam <nospam(a)nospam.invalid> wrote:

> In article <siegman-493DB3.17182728012010(a)news.stanford.edu>, AES
> <siegman(a)stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> > * Could I maybe reboot my Tiger MacBook from the Leopard system on her
> > MacBook Pro still operating in Target Disk mode, and essentially provide
> > her with all her own files and apps?
>
> that should work.
> >
> > Again, what steps?
>
> hold down option when booting and pick the firewire target drive.

THANKS --

Or, afterthought, create an account for her on my Tiger MacBook -- maybe
by just dragging her entire user folder (her "little house", as she
calls it) from Leopard Target Disk to the Users folder on my Tiger
MacBook?
From: nospam on 28 Jan 2010 21:15
In article <siegman-EE2ACD.17591028012010(a)news.stanford.edu>, AES
<siegman(a)stanford.edu> wrote:

> Or, afterthought, create an account for her on my Tiger MacBook -- maybe
> by just dragging her entire user folder (her "little house", as she
> calls it) from Leopard Target Disk to the Users folder on my Tiger
> MacBook?

you might be able to use migration assistant to import her account, but
i'm not sure if it works from a later system to an earlier system.
From: David Empson on 29 Jan 2010 16:33
AES <siegman(a)stanford.edu> wrote:

> In article <280120102026304823%nospam(a)nospam.invalid>,
> nospam <nospam(a)nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
> > In article <siegman-493DB3.17182728012010(a)news.stanford.edu>, AES
> > <siegman(a)stanford.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > * Could I maybe reboot my Tiger MacBook from the Leopard system on her
> > > MacBook Pro still operating in Target Disk mode, and essentially provide
> > > her with all her own files and apps?
> >
> > that should work.
> > >
> > > Again, what steps?
> >
> > hold down option when booting and pick the firewire target drive.
>
> THANKS --
>
> Or, afterthought, create an account for her on my Tiger MacBook -- maybe
> by just dragging her entire user folder (her "little house", as she
> calls it) from Leopard Target Disk to the Users folder on my Tiger
> MacBook?

No, that won't work. You can't "downgrade" a user account to run on an
older major version of Mac OS X, due to changes between versions in
various files in the Library folder, particularly for Address Book, iCal
and Mail. There could be many other issues. In short, don't try to copy
the Library folder.

You can copy document files from elsewhere in her home folder.

As you are using Eudora, that simplifies things - no Mail to worry
about.

Address Book can be dealt with by booting into Leopard, exporting her
contacts as a group vCard and importing it in Address Book in Tiger.

iCal has a similar export/import mechanism. You can at least export an
individual calendar as a .ics file. I haven't tried "downgrading" iCal
this way.

--
David Empson
dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz
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