Firewire 800 port doesn't work for cameras but works for Ext drives

I have a Power PC G5 1.8 running 10.5.8
I have a 9 pin FW 800 port on the back that does not work for cameras, trying to capture video into Final Cut Pro. But works fine when I hook up an external hard drive to it.
Does anyone know why that is? It used to work, now it doesn't. Any suggestions?

Does System Profiler>Hardware>Forewire tell us anything when the Cameras are plugged in FW/800 port?
Do the Drives have an extra FW/800 port to plug the Camera in?

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Since downloading Mac OS Lion, Firewire 800 port doesn't run?

Since downloading MaCOS Lion, Firewire 800 port doesn't run?

You could try to run Apple Hardware Test from the DVDs that came with your computer.

Hi. I have a Macbook Pro Model 5,5 with one 800 firewire port. I need to create two firewire 800 ports but only have an SD card slot (this is for video interface with 2 cameras). Is this possible or do I have to have an express card slot in order to do

Hi. I have a Macbook Pro Model 5,5 with one 800 firewire port. I need to create two firewire 800 ports but only have an SD card slot (this is for video interface with 2 cameras). Is this possible or do I have to have an express card slot in order to do this?

Hi Jessica,
No, the SD slot will not work, you need an ExpressCard/34 slot.
I do not know if it works with cameras, but with two or more HDs, if the first one has two FW ports, you can "daisy chain" one or more additional HDs from it.

How do I capture tape-based media to my external hard drive? There is only one firewire 800 port on the back of my I mac. The manual says to import tape footage directly into fcpx, but then I lose my external hard drive. thanks for your help.

In FCP X How do I capture tape-based media (hdv clips)- which I want to import-to my external hard drive? There is only one firewire 800 port on the back of my I mac. The FCPX manual says to import tape footage directly into final cut, which works, but then I lose my external hard drive Do I have to import it into an event, then copy it over to an external hard drive? On Larry Jordan's tutorial, he has 3 external hard drives that show up on his monitor WHILE he imports his tape based media. How is that done? I can only get either the camera to appear OR my external hard drive. thanks for your help.

Thanks for your response, but that doesn't solve the problem. Yes, the LaCie hard drive has 2 firewire ports-
I have always done what you suggest (works fine in FCP7), but in FCPX when I do that the camcorder icon
does not appear. It only shows up when I DIRECTLY import the footage via firewire. ????

How do I connect my 2nd generation Ipod to a Firewire 800 port? It no longer holds a charge and it doesn't power up with the newer generation USB cable. The only way I can sync my Itunes library onto this Ipod is when it is powered...

How do I connect my 2nd generation Ipod to a Firewire 800 port on a new laptop? It no longer holds a charge and it doesn't power up with the newer generation USB cable. The only way I can sync my Itunes library onto this Ipod is when it is powered and connected simultaneously. Pls help.

Try here:
iOS: Not responding or does not turn on
If not successful then time for an appointment at the Genius Bar of an Apple store.

Using the firewire 800 port for my firewire 400 devices

I will be purchasing, at long last, a new mac mini to replace my faithful and well behaved G4 mac mini. I have a 20" cinema display and an external firewire 400 backup drive with the same form factor that sits below the mini. I would like to continue to use these peripherals as well as my video camera DV out. Ideally, it would be cool to have a FW800 hub that had both 800 and 400 places to plug my peripherals, but I don't see that available. Should I get a hub and adaptors for the fw400 components I want to add, or use the hard drive with an adaptor to the mini, then use the FWports on the drive for the monitor, and whatever else I want, thereby using the drive as a hub...
Any advice to this ignorant question would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Paul

Since Firewire 400 devices still operate at Firewire 400 speeds regardless of whether or not they are connected by adapter to Firewire 800 ports, the best thing to do is just get a Firewire 800 to 400 adapter, and attach it to a Firewire 400 hub known to be able to do all the functions you desire.
Note, migrating to Intel Macs from PowerPC Macs is not as easy as the Migration Assistant, as this user tip explains:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435350&tstart=0

Rear FireWire 800 port not working

After installing Leopard, I connected my TimeMachine external FW 800 drive to the rear FW 800 port, but it was not recognized. I also have an external drive connected to the rear FW 400 port, and it works normally. After some experimentation, I found that if I unplug the FW 400 drive, the FW 800 port becomes active allowing the TimeMachine drive to mount. But any time I use the rear FW 400 port, the rear FW 800 port doesn't work.
The front FW 800 port works normally, and I'm using it for TimeMachine. But I'd like to keep the front ports open for tempory use.
Before calling AppleCare about this, I thought I'd see if anyone has any suggestions about things to try.

Thanks--I tried power cycling (as well as some other suggestions found on Mac sites) but so far, nothing has worked. If I start up with just the FW 800 drive connected to the rear port, it mounts. But as soon as I plug a cable in to the adjacent FW 400 port, the FW 800 hard drive dismounts with the error message that it wasn't unmounted properly. The FW 400 cable is connected to a powered FW hub, but none of the devices connected to the hub are powered on. I also tried another FW 400 cable connected directly to a FW 400 hard drive instead of the hub, but the FW 800 drive still won't mount.
I'll call AppleCare and see what they say--not looking forward to taking the Mac Pro into the shop.

FireWire 800 ports on 12-Core Mac Pro are not working

Just got this machine, suddenly the firewire 800 ports don't work.
Says: FireWire Bus:
Warning: Unable to list FireWire devices.

If it says that with no devices plugged in, it needs to go back to the store for a visit or exchange.
If it only says that with your devices plugged in, I would be more suspicious of the devices than the Mac. But it could be either, so you need some other known-good stuff to make progress.

Daisy chaining external hard drives and a video camera from a single firewire 800 port on my imac

I have only a single firewire 800 port on my imac and want to know if I can daisy chain two external hard drives and my video camera, please? If not is there another solution using USB 2?

Are the external HDs self powered or powered by the FW port? If they are self powered there should not be a problem. If they are port powered they may put a strain on the port's power output but I'n not positive on that.

Firewire 800 port on new MBP not mounting Lacie rugged 500GB drive

Hi all
I've just purchased the new MBP 17" and my Lacie Rugged 500GB drive will not mount.
It will mount over USB though.
I've tried three different FW800 cables and no result.
There are some posts around 10.5.7 update issues, but I've tried everything listed and no dice.
Any help would be appreciated.

I had a Western Digital My Passport Studio model like that. It has nothing to do with cables or your laptop. It has to do with manufacturers who fail to adhere to the proper power standards for the interface. Basically, if the drive demands more power then the port will give, it is never going to work.
I returned my WD to Apple for a refund, and instead tried a SeaGate FreeAgent Go firewire 800 drive. It has worked flawlessly over Firewire on my MacBook Pro, and it even came with both a Fire 800 cable, a firewire 800-to-400 cable, a USB cable, and a special USB power cable so you could draw additional power off the USB ports if a firewire 800 port wasn't putting out sufficient power. That's why I bought it - figured one way or another it had to be able to work on bus power (even if it had taken both the firewire and USB bus in combo to do it).
Another option I've had good luck with in the past is OWC Mercury on the Go drives (eshop.macsales.com). These have always worked fine on bus power for me, but they also have an optional external power supply too, just in case.

Firewire 800 Port back to life after power shutdown?

I experienced a strange event and would like to share it with you for feedback and comments.
During several days the external hard disk connected to the Firewire 800 port of my IMAC caused me increasingly problems, and eventually the disk would not mount at all on the desktop. I connected the disk to the FW800 port of my portable and the disk worked quite fine. I concluded that the FW800 port of the IMAC was damaged. I was preparing myself to contact Apple to get the IMAC repaired.
Then recently we had a general shutdown of power in our town, for several hours.
When the power came back, I had the idea to reconnect the external disk to the FW800 port, and miracle, the disk mounted immediately and has been working fine since.
Is is possible that the ports of the computer come back to life after a power shutdown? How is this possible?
Can I conclude that it is recommended to disconnect a computer from time to time, just to reset some parameters?

Yep, both USB and Firewire ports can get in into a "bad state" and only complete removal of power will reset those chip sets.
Unfortunately, when you power down the computer there is always a bit of power still applied to the motherboard to keep things alive and this usually includes powering the ports to do stuff like detect when a device is plugged in or wants to wake up the computer. The downside of this is when a bus/port chipset goes into a weird state, locks up, etc., simply power cycling (shutdown & restart) the computer won't work.
So first thing to try is resetting the chipset and to do this you have to power down the computer and completely unplug the computer from the wall power (unplug the power cord to your Mac). Also unplug everything from the Mac's ports (USB, FW, Ethernet, etc.) to make sure no parasitic power is still there to keep the chipset alive. Now let it sit for a minute (give those big power caps in there time to discharge). Now plug stuff back in & start up the Mac. Now see if your USB or Firewire ports work any better.
Even Apple acknowledges this occasional issue...
What to do if your computer won't recognize a FireWire or USB device
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317?viewlocale=en_US
Best of luck!
Patrick

How to test FireWire 800 port

Hello -
My MBP's FW800 stopped working on my WD MyBook 1Terabyte Pro Edition II HD. I tested with an identical MyBook HD and same. I switched cables. Nada.
Both FW400 and USB work just fine.
Any way to test/verify the port is dead without having to take it in for service check, which means I am without a computer for a week or two?
Thanks for any sage advice given.
Steve

hi fgm14,
"If you connect a bus powered firewire device
(Firelite) in my case. You MUST NOT connect any other
firewire drive EVEN IF POWERED in either the 800 or
the 400 port"
I found this info too. I think it was the reason for "killing" the 800 port temporarily (see my post above).
In fact both, hd and camera were self-powered during capturing. In my Case there is one special aspect which MAY have caused the port-killing: I think - I'm not sure - that I disconnected the camera's power plug after capturing but let the camera-fw-400-port connected. Maybe the mbp thought (so far it is able to do? from now on the fw-400-unit is to be bus powered.
At the moment I solved it this way:
- external hd connected to the 800 port of the mbp c2d
- camera connected to 400 port of the external hd
So far it works: capturing dv-material with final cut pro to the external hd.
I find this a great pain - can anyone else confirm
this advice?
In fact it IS a great pain having 2 ports one cannot use simultanously without paying a lot of attention on how the parts are powered. Is this apple-like? I think we have to consider: it is - as the myth of apple products reliability is only a myth! I had 2 logic boards to be replaced (G4, G5; in both cases one of the two processors didn't work right from the start), three 23'' acd's were returned because low color and lightning quality before I bought a even cheaper eizo-model.
I love the apple hard- and software-designs and maybe on windows its much more trouble with the system, but is it satisfying enough?
Does Apple ever answer these forum questions - I see
no way to talk to them after 90 days.
My experience: the only way is to buy an apple care protection plan to reduce your efforts and costs for a time. Normally phone support ends up in "Please contact your local apple service provider."
Good luck
ccp
G4 · G5 · MBP C2D Mac OS X (10.4.9)

IMac 21.5",3.2 ghz i3. has dead firewire 800 port.

Like it says firewire 800 port does not work. I plug in a known good ext HD. With known good cable. Power light on HD comes on & I can hear it spinning
but it never mounts to desktop. Doesn't show up in Disk utilities either. HD mounts fine if I use usb port. I know FW 800 port on HD & cable are both good
because they work fine on friends 27" iMac. Anybody have any ideas or suggestions. I would really appreciate it.
Thank you in advance
HAPPY HOLIDAYS

I have tryed that. I've also tryed resetting the SMC, & the PRAM. Thank you for the suggestion.
From what I've been reading on this site, it sounds like I don't have any choice but to bring the
iMac into the service center. I am glad I got Apple care. Otherwise I would be screwed. My iMac is just over 1 year old. Once again Thanx for your time & help. Appreciate it. Have a Great Day

Is there a way to test the Firewire 800 port?

My firewire 800 port seems to no longer work on my Imac. Before bringing the machine to repair, I was wondering if there is any way to test the port, or to reset it. I remember I had a similar issue a few years ago and I could make it work again.
Thank you for your help!

Hi Felix
1. Try resetting the FireWire bus as described in the +What to do if your computer won't recognize a FireWire or USB device+ article below:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317?viewlocale=en_US
2. Connect a FireWire device and open your *System Profiler,* then in the Hardware section select FireWire to see if the device is shown on the bus.
Dennis

Broken FireWire-800 port?

Hello,
I've bought a LaCie HDD with especially a FireWire-800 port because I use it to place movies on it and edit it with iMovie. Only when I connect the HDD with FW800 it does not show that it's connected on the iMac, with USB 2.0 it does show it, but that is too slow for me. First I thought it was a cable issue. And I even did an Apple Hardware Test which did not give a negative result. Then I took my HDD to test it on another iMac, there it did work. Does that mean my FireWire 800 port on my iMac is broken? What should I do now?

Greetings,
Your testing does indeed indicate an issue with that port.
Reset the SMC and then test: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Reset the PRAM and then test: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/26871.html
If the issue persists after you follow the above steps, make an appointment with a Mac Genius at an Apple store, contact AppleCare via phone, or contact an Apple Authorized Service Provider for assistance.
Best of luck.

Firewire 800 port doesn't work for cameras but works for Ext drives

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