Connecting Firewire 400 Drives to new iMac...

Hi all,
I just tried connecting two external drives to my new iMac using the FW400-to-FW800 and FW800-to-Thunderbolt cables. When I plugged the last bit into my new iMac, however, my Magic Mouse and keyboard stopped working. Did I do something wrong? Is there some setting I'm forgetting? Do I need to connect it all while off, then restart? Any and all help/advice is appreciated.
Thanks,
B

Hi all,
I just restarted the iMac with everything plugged in and it works fine. (headslap) Duh.
Thanks anyway!
-B

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Firewire 400 issue with new iMac 20"

Hi all,
Maybe one of you can help. I've got a problem with my Western Digital myBook 500Gb external harddrive when I connect it to my (new) iMac 20" using the firewire 400 port. The drive does not show up on the desktop, not in diskutility and also not in the systemprofile (it just says 'FireWire-bus: Maximum speed: maximum 800Mb/sec').
To make sure there's nothing wrong with the port I connected a Canon DV camcorder (using the 400 port but using different firewire cable). I shows up correctly in the systemprofile and I can get data of that. So, I assume the port is functioning properly.
To make sure the external drive is working and there's nothing wrong with the firewire cable, i connected the drive to my 'old' iMac (a core duo 17") and it all works fine. So, the device must be ok and the cable aswell.
Some extra details:
- Both macs run osx 10.4.10.
- If I connect the drive using usb, it all functions correctly, i can even boot from the drive.
- When I booted the 20" mac for the first time i used the wizard to copy over the data from the old mac using the firewire cable. That all worked correctly.
Any ideas what could be wrong?
Any help would be very much appreciated.

Some more details: if i unplug the power from the drive and refresh the systemprofile it does find the drive, although it is listed as an unknown device:
Unknown device:
Manufacturer: Unknown
Model: Unknown device
GUID: 0x0
Maximum speed: Maximum 400 Mb/sec
Connectionspeed: Maximum 400 Mb/sec
(the above was translated from Dutch).
If I then plug in the power of the drive, sysprofile says 'FireWire-bus: Maximum speed: maximum 800Mb/sec' (also translated from Dutch).
Oh and zapping the PRAM did not make a difference, nor did removing WD files from the Library -> StartupItems folder. The LaunchDeamons folder was empty.
Message was edited by: Luca5

Old hard drive into new iMac

My old iMac (G5, no iSight) recently died. Of course, it had been a long time since I had backed up any of my data. The genius at the Apple store looked at it and said the motherboard burned out, but the hard drive was probably still good. While there I purchased a new iMac (iMac 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 24" display).
My question is... What is the simplest way, if any, to transfer data from my old hard drive onto my new iMac? The genius told me there was something I could buy to turn it into an external hard drive with a USB or Firewire connection, but he did not know the specifics.
Thanks in advance for any ideas!
JCG

Hi JCG
Stuffing the old HD in an External Drive Enclosure is probably the best way to go, because you have a choice of USB/400/800 combination's and it protects the drive. A slightly less expensive NewerTech USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter could also be used to transfer data between the old drive and new iMac.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/U2NV2SPATA/
Dennis

Best USB CD/DVD 'Superdrive' drive for new iMac

I've been reading several posts about external (USB?) optical DVD +/- burner/reader drives for the latest desktop iMacs, and several comments have been about various third party ones being superior to the external Apple one that's also available (i.e. that Apple drives often give trouble and are less reliable).
Having seen the likes of LaCie, Western Digital and Seagate mentioned, I'd appreciate comments/recommendations before I go ahead and buy a new iMac - along with an external Apple? or third party? drive.

The new iMacs use USB 3.0 speeds, now.
I would look for an optical drive that uses the new USB 3 connections.
This will be a very fast drive.
If you can't find an optical drive with USB 3.0, then look for a drive that uses FireWire 400/800 and use an Apple FireWire to Thunderbolt adapter to connect the drive.
FireWire 800 optical drives are pretty fast at up to 85Mbps transfer speeds.
Here is one such drive.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MRF82SD24S/
And the Apple adapter.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD464ZM/A/apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapte r?fnode=51
Good Luck!

Why is firewire 800 slow on new iMac?

I have two, new G-drives. One of them is used for off-site data storage. I need to copy about 225 GB of data (a single data file) from one drive to the other each week. Using my 13" MacBook Pro (2.66 GHz Intel Core Duo), the process takes about an hour. Using the SAME drives and the SAME cables, it takes about 6 hours to copy the same amount of data using our brand, new 21" Intel iMac. Obviously, the new, state-of-the-art iMac should AT LEAST be as fast as the year + old MacBook Pro. Any ideas how to get the iMac up to speed?
Thanks!
Philip

Thanks to everyone who commented on this problem. This morning I unplugged all the drives and the computer, came back to it five minutes later, plugged in the iMac and cleared the PRAM. Then I plugged the firewire 800 drives in and began copying the now-259 GB datafile from one G-drive to the other. The speed is back! It is copying a gigabyte every 20 seconds/ 3 gigs per minute. The 259 GB of data will copy in less than an hour-and-a-half.
Main lesson learned: At least with these new iMacs and probably with all Macs, using a firewire 400 drive attached to the firewire 800 port will cause the system to switch itself into a firewire 400 mode and keep it there even after removal of the firewire 400 device(s). Rebooting does not reset firewire 800 functionality. Zapping the PRAM, however, does clear the problem allowing the computer to revert to firewire 800 functionality. I had also unplugged the machine so maybe the SMC circuit was reset by that, too. The bottom line is this procedure worked. This experience makes me have to think about eliminating the firewire 400 drives from my systems.

No Firewire Adapter Included in new iMAC

OK, am I too picky? I just received my new iMAC and realized that the firewire 400 port on my old G4 is not compatable with the firewire 800 on my new iMAC. I have seen other discussions about how easy it is to buy adapters. I live in the San Francisco bay area, and have been to three radio shacks, two Best Buys and none had this item or were out. I have spent over three hours driving from store to store. The ultimate frustration is that I visited our local Apple store and they don't stock this item!! Apple must realize that many, if not most, people bought a new iMAC to replace their old apple computers and thus an firewire adapter would be necessary. Would it have been too much to have expected Apple to have included this item which for them could not cost more than a few dollars? I waited several weeks for the computer, wasted gas, time and money searching for a very simple and inexpensive item that apple should have included, so I guess waiting a week more to order it is not that bad. Sorry to vent, but this is very poor thinking and quite rude to Apple's customers.

The item is readily available online. Here's one at long-time Apple-friendly OWC. Actually, one is an adapter, one is a cable. Either one would work. I'd go with the cable to eliminate one connection point.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/FIR1369AD/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/1394B96036/
Give your business to the businesses that provide what you need and support the Mac platform. Radio Shack, Best Buy, please... Don't buy at those places when you can get it more easily and for less money at a store that caters to Mac users.
The Apple Store does carry it (though expensive compared to OWC).
http://store.apple.com/us/product/TP320LL/A?mco=MzE3NzU2NQ

Mac Pro Early 2008 problems with firewire 400 drives

I am having some sporadic problems with firewire 400 drives and am trying to figure out my best options going forward. System 10.5.2 has hung on me twice in the first week of use, and each time I noticed from console there were some problems accessing one or more of these drives (even though I wasn't doing any reads/writes to/from them). Just before one of the crashes, Disk Utility also had problems "seeing" these drives. My external firewire drives are:
Maxtor OneTouch III 750GB
Acomdata enclosure/Seagate 400GB
LaCie d2/160GB
LaCie w/Lightscribe DVD
I have this "cobbled" arrangement because I just upgraded from an eMac and needed these drives to manage video files, audio files, photos, etc. While I'd love to go out and buy new internals to install in my spare bays, and migrate the data to them, I will have to do that in stages as my budget is tapped out at the moment. My MacPro is the base version of the early 2008 units, with 300GB internal.
In the interim, is it worth troubleshooting firmware updates for these externals, or am I destined to continue to have firewire problems? Is there a straight-forward/inexpensive way to remove these drives from enclosures/install in drive bays with an adaptor? I believe the external hard drives are all ATA type drives.
Thanks in advance for any counsel.

I would assume that the Maxtor may be SATA. Does it have an eSATA port? Also, there were a lot of threads (in OS X Leopard forum) about those OneTouch units. Same can be said for LaCie problems.
Yes, check for firmware and configuration. In some cases, and what I do with any new OS, is to reformat all drives - gradually. Given the age of the eMac I'd guess firmware is out of date, and that the drives are formatted some time ago. While you don't have to use GUID, it is a good idea eventually, or just reformat a drive.
Don't forget to test your drives with Disk Warrior (4.1) also.
750GB WD Caviar is $139 SATA.
http://eshop.macsales.com/Specials/XLR8YourMac.cfm?Criteria=&sort=&man=Western%2 0Digital
Are you using daisy chains? you have one FW bus shared by front and back ports. Do you have any on FW800 or using FW400 to FW800 adapter cable? PCI Express FW400 card might even help a little.
Never had trouble with OWC enclosures:
http://www.macsales.com/firewire/

Playing Russian Roulette with Firewire 400 drives and Final Cut Pro

oh boy! this has been a fun week!
I would love to ask the advice of the group about checking the firwire
ports on my computer, and also on the separate external drives.
Here is what has been going on.
Final Cut Pro 5 starts up and then starts to pinwheel.
but in short here is the result, I have recently lost 2 external
FIREWIRE 400 drives, one by LaCie that is my newest drive of the
group, it is 160gb 2 port FW400, and another by ProMax which also has
2 FW400 ports. the lacie was the first to go and is just not mounting
and does not show up using any of my Disk Utility software (even the
heavy duty stuff like DATA RESCUE II or Disk Warrior), I am thinking
that both ports are bad(maybe fried by another bad port on my tower?)I
can hear it when i boot it up and it sounds normal with the same
routine sounds, but it just doesn't mount, nor show up, so is this the
ports?fried?
Now, on my tower I have the following setup - 2 FW400 ports that are
STOCK that came with the TOWER G4 when I bought it. There is also a
FIREWIRE 400 card which has 3 ports. In the past I have used all the
ports for drives, and for a printer and a scanner in my studio.
Everything mounted and worked properly. Then,recently I moved the
drives and the tower to another location(in the room and no I didn't
drop or shake anything) and replugged everything in again, probably in
different slots but upon boot the external firewire drives didn't mount.
I had to UN PLUG them and then RE INSERT them by trial and error(which
I thought normal as I have done this when using these drives with my
laptop, until I got them to mount. they all did mount. However, once
up an running I started Final Cut Pro 5, and it started to get a
PINWHEEL for more than reasonable and if forced me to RESTART the
computer.
The next time, one of the HARDDRIVES (the LaCie 160gb) was no longer
mounting, and I tried to change firewire ports and on the stock and
also on the card for fear that the 3rd party card might be faulty.
I even ran APPLEs HARDWARE Utility and it gave no results as to
anything faulty on the firewire ports. It just said they were there.
Both stock and the PCI firewire card.
Next, I tried to mount this LaCie 160gb onto another computer, with no
results.....it now acts as if both ports are faulty, again, I hear the
drive spinning and going through its initial startup, which sounds
exactly like the other drive, but it never mounts. which is odd...what
is your idea about this drive? and how to save it?
is there a way to take the drive out of the casing and test it in my
other LaCie160gb that is currently working?
2nd, this is where it gets funky, then upon starting Final Cut Pro,
the pinwheel reappeared now with another firewire drive a PROMAX 160gb
that was plugged into the STOCK FW 400 port (on the tower) starting to
show a RED light(not good), however, after restart, I didn't see the
PROMAX drive mount, but I was able to load it up with DATA RESCUE II,
and it is doing a QUICK SCAN to save the DATA on that disk......
now I have backed up most of this data, but the problem now is not the
data, it is whether or not to even plug any of my other drives into
any of these FW ports until I can test them for faultiness.
A friend told me of another friend having a problem where a firewire
port was frying drives as soon as they plugged them into the certain
port. How can you figure this out without re-acting like 'Deerhunter?'
This feels like playing Russian Roulette......if you get my drift?
How do you check any ports for such foul play?
Thanks in advance for your support....
makin

well, now I am finding out that the culprit is I think the POWER MAC g4 itself.
For it has been blowing the firewire ports over time by frying them with power.
Has anyone had this happen?
My Power Mac g4 will not shut down.
It powers itself back up.
I end up having to press the POWER button and holding it, but this sends power to the firewire ports and I can hear them turning on.
so all this time I had just dealt with the issue
Apple had seemed to blame it on a 3rd party MATROX card in the PCI slot.
But, now that has long been taken out of the equation.
The only thing left is that the 17inch MONITOR is plugged into the POWER MAC and for some reason it is keeping a charge?
Can anyone help me in this matter?
As this has haunted me for 5 years with this machine, and I have probably fried more drives than I care to mention.
I just want my computer to SHUT DOWN when I tell it to.
is that too much to ask?
Might the POWER SUPPLY be at fault?
What in God's name could keep this ******* of a computer from shutting down?
I have no USB hubs or keyboards hookedup
the only thing is the MONITOR itself....that you can press its button to shut down etc.
I would be honored to know what this is as APPLE CARE never could figure it out
I didn't want to go through the hassle of taking out the RT MAC card, and just either left the machine on, or Unplugged the thing....
that is a nasty way to shut down a computer is it not?
much thanks to any one who can help me to figure this out?
thanks
singleton

Is Disk Utility in OS X 10.8.2 the version of Disk utilit that controls the Fusion Drive on new Imacs?

is Disk Utility in OS X 10.8.2 the version of Disk utilit that controls the Fusion Drive on new Imacs?

No. Only those computers with a Fusion Drive installed will get the special version of Disk Utility. Do a Google search if you want to find out how to create a fusion drive with older systems, but I suggest it's a waste of time.

How will it be possible to to use a firewire external with the new iMac

I see the new iMac has four USB 3 ports and two Thunderbolt ports.
I have numerous FW 800 externals I use for back up, Time Machine and so forth (many are less than a year old and were not inexpensive).
When I get a new iMac, what will be the process or procedure to use one or more of those Firewire externals with the new iMac?

Try http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD464ZM/A
This Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter should do it for you.
Allan

Migration Assistant using firewire not working between new iMac and G5. Ah!

I unpacked my new iMac 21.5' last nite and spent three painful hours trying to use Migration Assistant to tranfer files from my old iMac G5, which is using OS X 10.4.11.
I follow all of the instructions ver batim: connect the 400/800 firewire between the old and the new iMacs, start migration assistant on the new iMac, reboot the old iMac holding down the 'T' key until the firewire symbol pops up on the screen. At that point, the new iMac sits there with the message 'waiting for the other iMac to restart.' It never seems to recognize the old iMac. I tried rebooting, reconnecting the cable, etc. No luck.
I also tried using the ethernet option with no luck. The computers find each other but after entering the 'code' twice, the old mac gets stuck 'searching for other computers on the network.'
Any advice? I'd really like to use my new iMac!!!!

May not help but give this a try on the G5:
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger and Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
I would also first turn off both computers then connect the FW cable. If both computers have a FW800 port then you can use a standard FW800 cable. Boot the G5 into TDM. After the TDM screen appears boot the new computer normally.

Migrating iTunes, iPhoto from external drives to new iMac

We've finally decided to upgrade from our trusty Power Mac G4 tower (10.4.11) we've had since 2002 to a new 21.5-inch iMac. It arrives tomorrow.
I'm already anticipating problems migrating to the new system, tho'. The 20Gb startup disk seemed science-fiction large in 2002, but obviously we quickly ran out of space. Currently, our iPhoto library lives on a second internal SATA HD, and iTunes on an external FireWire drive.
What's going to be the best way to migrate all that stuff to the new iMac's 2Tb (science fiction numbers, again!) drive? Will the migration assistant find the iPhoto and iTunes files on those other disks?

den.thed wrote:
Open iTunes on your new iMac and go to File > Add to Library then navigate to the iTunes library on the External HD and hit the Choose button.
Do the same for iPhoto File > Add to Library while your connected to the G4.
Just for clarity's sake, you're talking about selecting the iTunes/iPhoto media folders, right? Not selecting each file individually, I hope.
And from what you're saying, it doesn't sound like Migration Assistant is going to pull anything over from my old iTunes or iPhoto settings, much less media stored on external/expansion drives, is that correct? I'll have to drag those files over via Ethernet, I imagine.

Can you connect Firewire 400 to Firewire 800?

Have had a Powerbook Titanium G4 and just got a new MacBook Pro. The TiBook has an 800FW port, the TiBook only a 400FW port. Can I connect the two directly? Is there a 400 to 800 adapter cable? I'd like to transfer files fast between the machines.
Currently I transfer files through an external hard drive that has both 400 and 800 ports. But it sure would be easier if I could get the TiBook to run in FW target disc mode with the MacPro. Any other suggestions for linking the machines?

Hi
There's a couple of ways to do it:
One solution is to get an Expresscard (e.g. Belkin Firewire 400 which gives you an extra two ports). I bought one of these and then went and misplaced it!
Rather than buy another Expresscard, I bought a Firewire 800/400 cable (cheapo/no name, I'm afraid) from a small computer shop - it was a quarter of the price of the Belkin and works fine. I also got a small adaptor plug so I that I can connect connect my camcorder.
Of course, I found the ExpressCard a couple of days ago...
You could connect the computers by an Ethernet cable, too.
Hope that helps.
OBG

LaCie d2 195 GB USB hard drive and new iMac

Has anybody had a problem with a LaCie d2 drive that is connected via USB instead of FireWire? I have both types of external hard drives; the FireWire connected LaCie has worked flawlessly, as has a Seagate 300GB FireWire drive. But my poor little LaCie 195 GB USB hard drive bit the dust when I tried to copy my iPhoto library from it to the hard drive of my new iMac Intel Core. The entire Mac froze up, even though there was disk activity on the LaCie. After waiting for 25 minutes for the Mac to unfreeze, I finally manually powered down the system. Unfortunately this corrupted my LaCie disk, and it could not be repaired using Disk Utility. Even when I tried to repartition the drive, Disk Utility simply hung to the point where I had to do a Force Quit to get out of it.
I forgot to mention that I was connecting the LaCie through a powered USB 2.0 hub - that could be a source of the problem, but it worked flawlessly in my iMac G5. I did reconnect it directly to a USB port on the iMac, but still could not get Disk Utility to repartition the drive.
Luckily I had a secondary backup of my photo and music files, or I'd really be crying right now.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
JD
PowerBook G4 12 Mac OS X (10.4.4)
PowerBook G4 12 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Mac 1 Ghz G4 1 gig Ram Os 10.4.5
My Firewire connected LaCie Bigdrive started disconnecting spontaneously with a complaint from the iMac that it was disconnected improperly.
Finally it did so once more and has not mounted via FW since. However, USB does mount it but big files take all day to transfer.
I took out the Maxator from the LaCie drive and put it in a FW/USB caddy, ok for a while then the same story. USB only mounting.
Informed with some confidence by a poster on Bombich's website
( http://forums.bombich.com/viewtopic.php?p=25658#25658 ) that it was the boot drive OS
Tried new cable. repaired boot drive disc, repaired permissions, ran DiscWarrior over it, repaired permisssions, ran downloaded 10.4.5 combo, ran DiscWarrior over it and finally repaired permissions again.
No Joy.
i would most appreciate useful suggestions.
Regards and thanks in advance
Anoop in the UK
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CD DRIVE FOR NEW IMAC 2012

can anyone please advise on the best optical drive for a new imac 2012 model in uk.

You can use any external optical drive with the new iMacs
You can use Thunderbolt, FireWire or USB 2.0/3.0 connected drives.
Here's one source for Mac optical drives
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optical-drives/superdrives/

Connecting Firewire 400 Drives to new iMac...

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