New Retina 5K, Late 2015 iMac not being seen in Casper Imaging

[EdRamos]

Hello All,

I am running into an issue with trying to image a Late 2015, Retina 5k iMac loaded with Sierra. When I boot it up in Target mode using a Thunderbolt cable, the target Mac icon appears on the desktop and is also seen in Disk Utility. However, when I open Casper Imaging and go to select the iMac as the target disk, it is not listed.

I am using Casper Imaging v9.96. The target iMac specs are:
Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015
OS X 10.12. Sierra
2 TB Fusion Drive, 16 GB RAM

Has anyone else run into this and is there any solution?

Thanks in Advance,
Ed

[were_wulff]

@EdRamos

You may be running into a known Product Issue (PI-002461) in which we see that Target Mode Imaging does not function as expected and will not see Fusion drives.

The workaround that we recommend is to use a different method of imaging for computers containing Fusion drives that are on El Capitan or Sierra, which I know is not always ideal, but it is the most reliable way around it we've found so far. There were changes made to the OS in El Capitan, which is when we first noticed the issue, and the issue still persists in Sierra.

The PI mentioned above is still in the open status, which means it has not yet been addressed and will still cause the behavior that you're seeing here.

If you have further questions about the PI, or would like to get a case started to have attached to the PI, please get in touch with your TAM.
You can do so by giving them a call, sending an e-mail to support@jamf.com, or by using the My Support section of JAMF Nation to create a case.

Sorry for the inconvenience, we know that this is a pretty annoying PI and that the workaround isn't always ideal for every environment.

Amanda Wulff
JAMF Support

[EdRamos]

Thanks so much, Amanda.

[sdagley]

I ran into the same problem with Fusion drive iMacs under El Capitan. My workaround was rather than connecting the target Fusion equipped iMac to an imaging computer via TDM, I booted it from an external SSD that contained Casper Imaging pointed to a local copy of the necessary imaging files from my DP. Once booted run Casper Imaging, select the Fusion drive as the target and image away.

It's not as streamlined as Target Mode Imaging but it did work. One caveat, I had to add a QuickAdd package to the workflow as the machines were not being properly added to my inventory (the jamf binary was present but the JSS didn't have a record of the machine). That was a few versions of the JSS ago, so it may not still be a problem.

[maxapen]

I tend to have this issue too, to rectify it I'll have to quit Casper Imaging and Relaunch it for it to see the Mac.