Thunderbolt on GA-Z77X-UP5 TH - cannot mount MBP in target disk mode

Hello,

I have a GA-Z77X-UP5 TH running F11. I ran 12a on the board I just swapped tonight - that board had a bad USB controller, and the thunderbolt ports seemed to be fried.

Here's what I have so far:

1. Use bottom TB port
2. TB ports work okay (in Windows I get the hardware insert/remove sound although nothing shows up in Device Manager)
3. Power on and connect the device (I only have a MBP in target disk mode to test for storage) before you turn on hackintosh
4. System Information always says "Thunderbolt: No hardware was found."
5. Running 10.8.2
6. Disabled wake on thunderbolt option in BIOS
7. Tested thunderbolt cable between two 2011 MBPs, one in target disk mode and they see each other fine.

Everything else is working okay on this mobo, and on my other hackintosh the same mobo is working fine with a TB to HDMI adapter and an external screen on the bottom thunderbolt port.

Please help me get this working.

Hasn't anyone tried to get this working on their hack? (Yes, a bump).

I would just like to confirm that I am trying the SAME EXACT THING.

Before I tried searching the net for any solutions, I ran through all of the same tests you did.

Changing thunderbolt settings in BIOS...

I tried switching back and forth between macpro 3.1 and imac 12.2 for system profiles...

neither worked for this.

I'm also running 10.8.2 on my hackintosh.

tested the Thunderbolt cable with target disk mode between two 2011 macbook pro machines.

I also get the "device connect / disconnect" sound in win7 when i plug and unplug the MBP in target disk mode...

So... i can honestly say mine is behaving the same as yours.


It looks like so far, on here, we're the only two people trying to do this, but hey, at least we're not alone.

I considered upgrading my BIOS to the F12e Beta version, but, people say it's buggy.


If i had to guess, this issue may not be resolved until the hotswapping issue is fixed with the Ga-z77x-up5 th boards...

I'm going to try a few more things... i'm not giving up yet. let's share our findings

I'd like to update with some things I have tried.

I started over, with a fresh install from My unibeast Usb key..

While the system was in setup mode... and it was on the migration assistant screen, I attempted to put my macbook pro into target disk mode, and connect to the system and see if thunderbolt was hotswappable during the installation process, with the "vanilla" drivers.

The system froze, and so, I suppose it wasn't the result I was looking for, but interesting that the thunderbolt had a reaction.

I restarted the installation again, but this time I tried leaving the macbook pro in target disk mode and connected to the thunderbolt ports during the reboot after the installation is finished...

It didn't freeze, however, it wasn't showing up as detected in either the setup migration assistance menu, or on the desktop...

I am going to try a few more things tonight...

Ok, one thing i noticed which may Help the admins or anyone else looking into the thunderbolt hot swapping issue...

I'm still booted up using the USB key bootloader, I haven't yet run multibeast so, I'm running with the "vanilla" drivers....

When I plug my macbook pro in with the thunderbolt cable... the system actually Freezes... mouse stopped responding and everything. no KP tho...

what's Key info though, is the LED diagnostic screen on the botherboard changes from A0 to 6C...

there is a quick flash of something before 6C, however I didn't see what it was...

I guess the motherboard is attempting to communicate with the

which according the manual... is "Reserved"

6B-6F is reserved...


I know the bios lets you change how much resources and memory are assigned to the thunderbolt port...

I've got half a mind to try changing the bios settings and seeing if, in vanilla boot mode.... I get any change in the LED diag screen or... any change in behavior.

On my macbook pro, which i'm typing this from now, under the system profiler screen, it's constantly "scanning" the thunderbolt device tree, trying to identify what is connected to it...

so... i feel like this is progress...at least to post this information on here somewhere

I disabled the "Wake On Thunderbolt" Option in the bios, and booted from USB Unibeast into the Vanilla install on my 128GB ssd...

When plugging and unplugging the thunderbolt cable from my mac pro, it no longer freezes the hackintosh.

When plugged in, the Diagnostic LED screen shows "6E" now... still in the "Reserved" range of diag codes according to the manual.

and when the thunderbolt is unplugged from the mac, it shows "01" which has no definition at all in the motherboard manual.

I'm going to try changing the bios settings for resources and memory... and see if this gets any further progress...


I wonder if anyone knows how much resources the thunderbolt ports are assigned in a real mac...

I have one in front of me, just not sure whee to check

sorry for all the updates...

i figured i'd still report my info here..

so, when the Macbook pro thunderbolt is plugged in at boot... from a shutdown state, and the system starts up normally, the LED diag shows "A0" when fully booted into OSX

When i unplug the thunderbolt in the OS, the LED changes to "01", (again no definition in manual)

and when plugging back in, it goes back to "6E"... not to "A0"

it's very interesting to me, there are things going on in the motherboard thunderbolt / pcie circuitry for detection that the OS isn't seeing...

but "6E" does not cause a Freezeup, where as "6C" will cause a freeze to the system.

My current bios settings are

thunderbolt
no wake on thunderbolt devices
a value of "4" for resources"
256mb ram assigned to thunderbolt.

I'm wondering... If there was another device in between the Macbook pro, and the motherboard... such as a display or, a seagate or lacie external hard drive... I wonder if there would be some change in this situation at the moment.

I know other devices are detectable...

i just think there may be some hardware level "handshaking" going on between a MBP in target disk mode, and another mac...

I'll stop posting for tonight... don't want to annoy anyone...

I lied about posting any more about this tonight... sorry

I was able to Test the Target disk mode speeds between Two 2011 Macbook Pros.

Both are 2.0ghz Quad Core i7's with thunderbolt and Firewire 800.

I tested mine in target disk mode, and my friends was reading it as an external, and running the "xbench" application to get a rough idea of the transfer speed differences between thunderbolt and firewire 800.

The reason being, if for some reason, there wasn't a big difference in transfer speeds, I would have dropped this project and just gone with firewire 800...

but...

I have two hard drives in my Macbook pro acting in Target Disk Mode. (removed the superdrive)

the boot drive is a Samsung 830 Series 256gb
the storage drive is a WD 750gb Black drive, 7200rpm

I uploaded screenshots of the test results... if anyone cares.

No surprises that thunderbolt is faster than FW800... but it's nearly double on some accounts so... I'll continue to work for a fix, now that I know it's worth it

Update for today...

I installed Macdrive 8.0.5 onto my win7 hard drive...

After the installation and restart was completed, I verified that I could see my OSX drives in the My computer screen in windows.

Then, I plugged in my Macbook Pro via thunderbolt while it was in target disk mode.

Windows made the "device connected" sound, however, the drives never showed up in my computer.

Also the thunderbolt and firewire logos on the macbook pro never changed. (uusually it will only show the icon of how its connected to another machine, when it establishes the connection"

So... this is disheartening still...

I did some reading on how the Target Disk Mode works...

I guess it's booting into EFI... so... I'm not sure it is truly acting as an external drive... or if it HAS to somehow "Handshake" with another mac on a hardware level in order to establish a connection and then act as an external drive.

:/

I ordered an apple thunderbolt to FW800 adapter, it gets here tomorrow, and I will try again VIA firewire800 ->thunderbolt on the ga-z77x-up5 TH.

It seems that Apple has implemented some type of custom firmware into their Thunderbolt controllers, therefore since your motherboard is not Apple, it is probably the reason why you're having trouble connecting it to a Mac and vice-versa.

Don't know of a work around right now, especially if it's due to firmware.