Dongle via an external firewire HD

A little OT... and I admit I didn't really search before posting this ;-p
MacBook Pro has only 2 USBs. Logic takes one precious USB for the dongle and connecting a MicroKontrol leaves no USB. I got a Lacie external firewire HD to store Jampack loops, then, this came to me..
What if I had an external firewire HD which has a USB port? Can I connect the dongle there and thus free the precious USB port of the notebook? Is there such external HD which can use both firewire and USB and works also as a hub?
If there's such thing, I should have spent more for one instead of jumping on the simple firewire only inexpensive drive...

I just got a 7 port USB hub, the size of a deck of cards. 5
ports around the sides and 2 on top. My dongle proudly
sits in one of the top slots as if king. For about 50 bucks,
I now have more USB ports than I need, for now.

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Problems Installing via an External Firewire DVD drive

Hi,
I'm trying to install Leopard from an external LaCie D2 (with LightScribe) DVD/DL drive via a Firewire cable.
I start the iMac (G5 20" SuperDrive is dead) via the "option" key, a screen with a choice between HD and Leopard Install DVD appears.
When I select the second option (install Leopard) I have the Apple Start Up screen (the grey screen with the dark grey Apple) but the spinning flower is missing. And the screen stays that way for minutes... Is it normal? Do I have to wait more? Is my iMac cursed?

Here's the problem:
1- the problem occurs when I boot, so the OS is "innocent"
2- when I load the start up menu (with the option key held down) I see both of the drives (HD and External Firewire DVD drive), so it can't be a "power" problem... (http://youtube.com/watch?v=MQs2n1vxpkw)
3- when I insert a DVD (movie for example), the drive reads it when connected via USB 2.0 and doesn't via Firewire, so the drive is unable to read (or reads slowly)? a Driver problem?
4- when I shutdown the iMac with the external drive connected via the USB port, the drive shuts down too, while it doesn't when it's connected via the FW one...

Can i use imac's internal CD/DVD drive to install windows 8.1 pro on macbook via ethernet or firewire or other than purchasing an external drive??

can i use imac's internal CD/DVD drive to install windows 8.1 pro on macbook via ethernet or firewire or any method other than purchasing an external drive??

Note: These types of discs or activities are not supported by DVD or CD sharing:
DVD movies.
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Copy protected discs such as game discs.
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Burn a CD or DVD

Connecting DV camera via firewire disconnects external firewire drive

All of a sudden this has started happening.
When i connect my video camera via firewire to my external Lacie harddrive, and turn the camera on, the drive I have it connected to goes off line. A window come up saying 'Device Removal'. When I disconnect the camera, the drive comes back online.
I have 4 drives connected inline and it happens to any one of them, whichever I attach the firewire to.
I trashed FCP permissions, but that didn't help. I'm running FCPHD 4.5.
Any ideas?
PowerBook G4 15 Titanium Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Its the canon camera. Firewire and canon cameras apparently don't play in the same sandbox very well. All macs have only one firewire bus. For a macbook pro you can use an express card slot, but the imac's you are kinda stuck. The best course of action is to copy to hard drive and then move it within imovie. I read this in Tom Wolksy's book on FCE. It is weird. I have a Sony HDV and an older imac and i can use one firewire port for importing and go straight to an external firewire drive--no problem. However, in his book on page 56. It states the firewire issue. I know this is an imovie forum, but i can assume its also the same for imovie.

Should I be able to boot from external firewire disk?

Yesterday, to prepare for upgrading to Leopard, I copied across my hard drive contents onto an external Firewire drive, by using drag & drop, folder by folder.
I was hoping that this would let me (after a reboot) select the external drive as my Startup Disk in System Prefs, or allow me to choose it if I rebooted holding down the alt key. However the external drive doesn't show up in either case.
Is there something else I need to do to allow booting via external Firewire? Is that even possible on my PB 1.5GHz (OSX 10.3.9)? Thanks.

Close, but no cigar! Copying by drag n drop misses invisible files necessary for a boot volume. The way to do this is to use one of the cloning programs like SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner to copy everything needed to make the FW drive bootable. You can even specify to NOT copy all your files if you wish.
I go to Versiontracker.com to get these programs.

Is it possible to boot a G4 (pci graphics) from an external firewire drive?

I have a Lacie 250 gig bootable external firewire drive which is recognized on my Power PC G4 400 but I cannot get it to boot from this drive. The procedure works fine on my ibook... I looked into a possible firmware update but the apple site says no update is necessary for the G4 400/pci graphics...
Any suggestions?

There sure are some radically contradictory posts here! (This isn't typical, at least in this section of the Discussions, RMx2.)
Can anyone who has posted here (or might join in here) actually boot from a hard drive connected via USB? I just tested this with OS X and I can't. For some time now, the Discussions have been riddled with posts, whether 100% accurate or inaccurate, that Macs don't boot from USB drives, despite the seemingly conflicting info in the article that Don kindly referenced. (John Huber: Don't eat your words just yet, John!)
Here's my personal experience, for what it's worth... I have a rev.2 B&W G3 which recognizes, reads, and writes to drives via USB, but refuses to boot from them (I tested with OS X 10.3 and 10.4). I also have a QS 2002 G4 that yields the same results. The QS G4 will, however, boot from these drives via FW. I used a WiebeTech ComboDock for testing this with both USB and FW. I tested with two different hard drives, both of which are known to have stable, working versions of OS X on them.
My G3 running OS X 10.3.9 sees the USB-connected drives in the Startup Disk Preference Pane, but when I click to Restart after selecting the USB system folder there, I get a beachball (haven't seen that in awhile...) and have to Force Quit System Preferences. Console tells me that that it could not get open firmware information or set open firmware information, and that it can't touch or set System/Library/CoreServices/BootX, returning Error 1 running bless.
On the QS running Tiger, the USB OSs don't even appear in the Startup Disk Pane of Sys Prefs. I can see the USB drive(s) using the Startup Manager, but selecting them and restarting results in a hung startup to a spinning cog with a prohibitory sign on the screen...
I haven't tried playing around with open firmware NVRAM settings (and don't intend to, except perhaps for trying an NVRAM reset), nor have I attempted to boot to OS 9, reset the startup disk there, and attempt the boot again to the USB device in OS X and in OS 9, which I may try later on when I have a bit of time...
Gary
Message was edited by: Majordadusma

External Firewire Hard Drive is not recognized

Hello
I have a LaCie External Firewire Hard Drive (like this one (http://www.lacie.com/us/support/support_manifest.htm?id=10105). Since it uses a fireware 400 cable, I bought a FireWire 800-400 adapter, the one from moshi that is sold in the mac store.
I have tried connecting it to both ports in the external harddrive, connecting and disconnecting and still is not recognized. Any idea and suggestions?
I already tried in another computer, with windows xp, and the hard drive works.
Thanks.

Hi, oops, I have more than 1 mac & I apologize for assuming you are a multiple mac owner..
You could visit your local Apple Store or Local Apple Approved Service Agent.
You could try connecting via USB if your external HD has the capability, it could also be a bad cable.
You can check the Finder -> Preferences & the Show These Items..
You can reboot with the Ext HD connected & see if it shows up on your d/top...L

Can't install OS 9 on external firewire disk

I am running Panther on an iMac G3 450. Some older software and games just don't run correctly in Classic mode, so I would like to install OS 9 on an external firewire drive. The original OS 9 disk from 2000 doesn't run with Panther. When booting from the OS 9 install disk, it can't read the firewire drive. How can I get the OS 9 boot disk to read the external drive for an install? Or - can I install OS 9 on my hard drive without affecting my OS X and all my software and files? Thanks.

Hi, sageimac -
The original OS 9 disk from 2000 doesn't run with Panther.
Correct. The installer on any stand-alone OS 9 Install CD, retail or original model-specific, will not run in OSX - it will run only when the Mac is booted to OS 9, such as to the OS on the CD.
When booting from the OS 9 install disk, it can't read the firewire drive.
The OS on OS 9 Install CDs contain the necessary software to 'see' a firewire drive connected to a native firewire port while booted to the CD, provided the drive does not need any additional software. If the firwire port was added via an upgrade card, OS 9 may not be able to see it without additional software.
When you added the firewire drive, did you reformat it using Disk Utility under OSX? If so, if the option to install OS 9 drivers was not selected, then that drive can not be mounted whenever the machine is booted to OS 9, such as to an OS 9 Install CD.
Article #106849 - Disk Is Available in Mac OS X But Not in Mac OS 9
Unfortunately, since in that case the drive probably did not have OS 9 drivers on it previously, there may be no solution but to re-initialize that drive - but it won't hurt to try re-installing OS 9 drivers while booted to the OS 9 Install CD, using Drive Setup's Update Driver function.
If it is necessary to re-initialize the drive, it can be done using Drive Setup while booted to the OS 9 Install CD, or by using Disk Utility while booted to OSX (be sure to select the option to install OS 9 drivers in this second case. This will erase it, so be sure to first back up your data. In either case select Mac OS Extended as the format.
Or - can I install OS 9 on my hard drive without affecting my OS X and all my software and files?
Yes - OS 9 and OSX are designed to co-exist on the same volume.
You should have no problem doing that, provided there is sufficient space on the hard drive. I do not consider my OS 9 to be overly fat; however, the System Folder still occupies about 0.4 to 0.5GB. OSX runs best when 5GB or so is left free on the drive. So, if you have 6GB or more free space on the internal drive, there should be no problem doing that.
Use the Clean Install method to install OS 9 from your original Software Install CD (not the Software Restore CD), or from a retail OS 9 Install CD of adequate version.
Note that a Clean Install of OS 9 removes nothing. It installs a brand new, 'clean' System Folder, renames any already existing one to Previous System Folder, installs a new set of standard OS 9 utilities if they're not already present, and little else.
Article #58176 - Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9: Performing a Clean Installation

10.4.7 update and external firewire problems with HD corrupion

Dear all,
Advised by Jpfresno I started this new topic about Tiger 10.4.7 update.
I will repeat my post and what was happening 2 weeks ago:
“In 5 years 10.4.7 update was a tragedy for my Powerbook Ti 667. When I update from 10.4.6 to 10.4.7 my 300 GB firewire drive gets corrupted, after repairing it with DiskWarrior and after connecting it to my PowerBook my computer freezes and I must shut it down via powerbutton. Safari also crashes after the update.
I just erase my Hard Drive and after that install 10.4 and update with combo to 10.4.7. But I had the same problems: finder freezes with connected firewire devices and also safari when browsing. I spend a week trying to solve the problem but no luck.
Yesterday and with no firewire devices, 10.4.7 freeze and I have big trouble in order to started my powerbook!!! Even when i insert the 10.4 install DVD it did not detected my HD. Finally I get it to work and install 10.4 and combo update to 10.4.6 and everything works. My external firewire drive and safari. I already diagnose my HD with disk utility, TechTool and directories with Diskwarrior and everything is ok.
I clone my 10.4.6 to firewire, boot from it and everything is working. I let my external drive connected and finder does not freeze.
My conclusion is that the problem is 10.4.7 update. It only give me problems and I was getting crazy with it. 10.4.6 is working good and I do not advice anyone to update to 10.4.7.”
Last week after reinstalling 10.4.6 I started to have HD problems with my Powerbook 667. I did a surface scan with TechTool I it reported bad sector. Then I done a zero disk format but after a second surface scan TechTool also reported bad sector. Then I take the decision to replace my internal HD. I bought a Samsung 40GB Hard Drive and installed it on my PowerBook. Then I have done a clean installation of 10.4.6 with all applications that I need and clone it to my hard drive with Intego Personal Backup software. Everything works on 10.4.6. and external firewire drive.
After that everything is ok. But I decided to test if my problem derivates from 10.4.7 update or from previous HD corruption. Then I install 10.4.7 update on my Internal Hard Drive. Everything is working good but after connecting my external Hard Drive the finder started to freeze!!!!!!!!!. After that I tried cloning HD to external firewire with Intego personal Backup. Everything was working good but when it was finishing the backup process started to give errors!! I started panic. I interrupted the backup process but after and after restart I found something strange with 10.4.7. The system started up, I login but I could not started any application!!!??? All my application died!
Then I have done one more clean installation of tiger and 10.4.6 update.
My conclusions are that the 10.4.7 update causes all the problems that I have on my PowerBook, because I used the same methods and same software/hardware on 10.4.6 and did no have any problem.
This last two weeks were very difficult to me. I tough that these problems do not happen with Apple computers but I was wrong!!! It is very hard to me to deal with it. I always said to my friends that I never had problems with Apple computers. I accept that a hard drive died because the use of it but I can not accept that a system update cause me 2 weeks of hard problems and make me loose precious work information! I always love apple computers and Apple OS but now I am disappointed
If anyone can explain what happen or have a solution for those problems?
Thanks for the comprehension and collaboration.
Best Regards
Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Hi, alsvieira.
There are some things you did not check in all of your troubleshooting:
1. Run the Apple Hardware Test (AHT) that came the affected computer. See my "Apple Hardware Test" FAQ for comprehensive advice on using the AHT in troubleshooting.
2. re: FireWire troubleshooting: Here is some general troubleshooting advice that may help if problems return with your FireWire drive:1. Review the AppleCare Knowledge Base document "What to do if your computer won't recognize a FireWire device".
2. If this problem occurred after installing a recent Mac OS X Update, and you are also unable to mount CDs, DVDs, or disk images perform the steps in this Mac OS X Hints article. This worked under Panther and may also work in certain situations under Tiger.
3. Power-on the FireWire drive before starting up (booting) your Mac.
4. Reset PRAM and NVRAM.
5. Resett the power-management chip in your Mac.
6. Try a different FireWire port. James Wiebe, CEO of WiebeTech, has published FireWire Port Failures in Host Computers and Peripheral Devices, a white paper providing backgroud information and technical analysis concerning the causes of failure for FireWire ports. This may provide additional diagnostic information.
7. Micromat TechTool Pro version 4 can test the FireWire bus in your computer: this tests the bus — not the ports — but if the problem is on the FireWire bus on the logic board, it should reveal it.
8. Check with the manufacturer of your FireWire drive or enclosure to see if any firware updates are available for such.
9. Hopefully, the partition map on the FireWire drive is not damaged. This can happen if the FireWire drive was not Ejected before being disconnected or powered off. If it still refuses to mount, you may need to employ data recovery tools or services: see my "Data Recovery" FAQ.Note that some of the information above is from the "FireWire Problems" chapter of my book, Troubleshooting Mac® OS X.
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

External Firewire HD won't mount after Connecting to B&W w/ bad Firewire

I've tried and tried to find the answer, so finally I post...
I've had two external Firewire Laptop HD enclosures become unmountable after hooking them up to a 400 Mhz powermac G3. This has been 6 months apart. I used to use the Powermac B&W ... I know the Firewire worked at one time, but cant remember if it was before or after I added a Belkin USB 2.0 PCI card.
After clean installing... 10.3.2 .... no Classic... I hoped it would wake up the Firewire, did not. So hooked up the external HD to the USB.... it worked. Then, went to the eMac and via Firewire hooke up the same external HD.... it worked.... for 2 hours. Disconecceted, reconnected and like the other one...... no more mount. Not in classic, not on any comuter. If I daisy chain it to another Firewire external, the About this Mac no longer recognizes info on either. Once removed, the computer recognized the info the good one. Disk Utilities does not recognize harddrives in the enclosure... I put a different HD inthe enclosure.. still not mounting
It spins and receives power.... but no mount. Is this firmware? The hard drive is not corrupted... I put it into a mac mini and was able to extract the info... but what has caused this B&W's fire wire to go, and caused 2 of my externals to go as well....
Help.
Mixolidean

try the following to reset the ports:
1) zap PRAM - reboot holding down Cmd-Opt-P-R and left the machine boot cycle 3-4 times
2) reset Open Firmware
reboot holding down Cmd-Opt-O-F
at the screen type <reset-nvram</i>
press Return
type reset-all
press Return
3) disconnect ALL devices from the computer
unplug the computer from the wall
let it sit for 10-15 minutes
plug back in and reboot

External Firewire-HDD only works in Win7 after Reconnect

Hello,
I use a 27" iMac with BootCamp 4.0 and Windows 7 64-bit. I connect an external HDD via the iMacs Firewire 800 port using a 9 to 4-pin cable.
This works fine, but only if I replug one of the connectors AFTER I switched the HDD on. Only switching it on take no effect; Windows explorer didn't show it!
I tried already the "OHCI-konformer IEEE 1394-Hostcontroller (Legacy)" drivers but with the same result - I alway have to reconnect the HDD every time i want to use it - gets on my nerves...
Any solution for this?
Thanks a lot!

Windows and FW800 never were supported and even FW400 is weak.
Thunderbolt devices are not hot pluggable and need to be present on startup in most cases.
USB3 is finding its way into Mountain Lion now that some Macs have them, and support in Windows 8, which gives more than enough bandwidth for any hard drive and most SSDs.
You can try a rescan in Storage in Computer Management.
eSATA and USB3 (and of course USB2) work fine with recognizing.

Ejecting a Firewire DV camera daisy chained vis a External Firewire HD

I have my firewire DV camera daisy chained via my firewire external Hard drive.
When I unplug my firewire dv camera, after a little while I get a message on my mac that a device was removed incorrectly and the external firewire dirve dismounts.
This only happens after I have unplugged my DV cam, so am I supposed to eject the cmera somehow??
It doesn't show as an external drive so I wouldn't have a clue where to even start looking.
Any ideas?

This only happens after I have unplugged my DV cam, so am I supposed to eject the cmera somehow??
This would depend on the "capturing" application. In most cases you simply tell the application that capture is completed by pressing a "Done" button, disconnect button, ESC key, or similar action to let the application know that it can close the device protocol and allow the device to be removed.

External firewire doesn't show

I'm having trouble seeing an external firewire drive on the desktop.
I've tried restarting with it on and then off, and turning it on after the boot is complete.
I've reset the PRAM, still without success.
The drive has a USB port which I tried, but when I connect via USB it still doesn't show up.
If I leave the drive on whille connected via USB the computer does not boot, the screen remains a blank white.
Outside of trying another firewire cable, are there any suggestions available that I can try?
Thank you.

a brody, thanks for your reply.
I tried safe mode, still didn't show up.
The drive doen't have any backup software, I use Carbon Copy Cloner.
The drive has worked well since 2007.
I tried booting from a drive other then the maind drive, holding the option key down on start up.
The only drive to show on the desktop was the main drive, the external didn't show.
Problem began a couple of weeks ago.
If the drive doesn't show either via firewire or USB, do you think the dirve is just bad, and a new drive is the way to go?

External Firewire Drive not Mounting

Hi, I've been searching these forums but can't find an aswer to my question. I just got a new 27" iMac, and purchased a Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adapter. I have 3 external Firewire drives, two of which are DC powered (the third, I understand, might be a lost cause, as it's bus powered, and I gather the bus power from TB won't power Firewire drives). At any rate, I'm not seeing either of the DC powered drives showing up, which is a big concern as I have about 5TB of stuff on them!
Any reason these wouldn't show up, either in the Finder or Disk Utility? Much thanks for any help!

Hi - did you ever resolve the dropouts? I have a new iMac purchased in Q1 2014 and connect my G-Grive to it via the Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adapter. My iMac runs 24x7 and this connection drops out on a regular basis - I'd say maybe once every week or so. I have a slightly newer USB3 G-Drive which is connected by the USB socket next to the TB socket on my iMac.
I cannot tell if it is a software issue or a physical (cable movement issue), the plug has never been out and I can't deliberately disconnect it at will by wobbling the cable/plug. So, evidence and experimentation suggests the physical connection is not the issue. This problem has only come about after switching from a physical FW800 connection (my old iMac) to working via a TB adaptor (my new iMac).

10.4 install in B&W rev 1 using external Firewire DVD

I know the B&W will not boot from an external firewire drive. Can I boot the machine in 10.1 from the 6GB internal and then get 10.4 to install from an external DVD to an internal 60GB drive (connected via a Sonnet ATA133 PCI card)? Yes, I could buy an internal DVD drive, but .. all these items are already in place.
Thanks
Alan
Message was edited by: Alan McCruden
Message was edited by: Alan McCruden
Message was edited by: Alan McCruden

Sorry but no. The Mac OS X installer must be able to boot the system which, as you say, you cannot do via Firewire. You'll need an internal DVD drive, unless you could clone another 10.4 installation to an external hard drive which you could then clone back to the G3's hard drive. Perhaps you could pull the drive out of the external case and mount it in the B&W until you get the OS installed.

Dongle via an external firewire HD

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