Fire Wire Bus load

I know this is a general "mac" question, but I trust my Logic and music cohorts to help out. I have a number of external drives hooked up. Is it better to spread them to different fire wire ports then to daisy chain them?
One is my "time machine" and often is in use and I'm wondering if it slows things down.
thanks
Dan

In theory, there is no difference between two devices chained off one port, compared to one device connected to it's own port.
In most computers, there is only one FW bus, so multiple ports are connected to the same bus - this is in effect the same as chaining two devices together - they share the available bandwidth.
In practice, some devices can be picky about where they are placed in a chain, or what comes after them, but these should be the minority.
But to answer your question, assuming your devices don't get on badly with anything else, it's not better - it generally makes no difference. I've happily had three FW drives and an audio interface chained to a port on my MBP without problems.

Similar Messages

I can't startup to an external 800 fire wire drive loaded with 10.5?

I have a Power Mac G5 with dual 1.8 GHz cpu's, 2.5 gigabytes of ram. Boot rom version 5.1.5f0 running OSX 4.11. And a Power PC G4
Laptop with one 1,67 Ghz cpu, with 1.5 GB of ram. Boot rom version 4.9.1f1, running OSX 10.5.7. My problem is that I can't get my new 1TB Western Digital external hard drive seen when you hold down the option key on either system?
I formatted it with a fresh OSX 10.5 I bought the family pack for the operating system so I'm legal and this was the 2nd computer to be loaded. The installation was complete but on reboot it went to my internal drive so I never was able to set up the internet settings and such to this startup drive. It will show up in finder and also under the system pref, under startup drive. So when you select it under that it still will just reboot to the internal drive?
And the option button on startup still just see's the internal drive? I've spent many days and nights trying to figure out what I've done wrong? So I ended up at a Mac store with the external hard drive and it booted up perfect! So what's up? The one thing that I noticed was a different graphic. On the option thing my computer shows up with a small drive icon and a watch looking thing that takes about 30 seconds to turn into a curser and at the mac store "bam" all drives showed up and it was larger graphic and just the curser.
So what's my problem on my other 2 systems? Possibly firmware? I tried that also and everything above the ones that I currently have says that the upgrades don't apply to my machines in some form or another? Also I assume that a 1TB drive was a pipe dream back then sooo? But the OS X updates should have taken care of that?
I have a new Imac 24 inch in a box, but I won't even open it until I can get this problem figured out! I want to condense my G4 and G5 info on a boot-able external hard drive. And I want to have my new Imac clean of all the clutter. Thanks' in advance for anyone that can help me! Even the Mac guy was baffled as-to why it wouldn't work on my other systems?

That's all correct.
However (and I've just found this), not all Western Digital drives are fully boot-compatible across both Intel and PowerPC Macs. Check out this table - you may find your drive just isn't supported:
Western Digital boot drive compatibility with Macs
Matt

Problems using FW-7344 with Fire Wire Video Cameras

Is it a bad idea to use the FW-7344 with other devices on the same fire wire bus?
We are trying to use an FW-7344 with a fire wire video camera but we tend to get packet errors that force a reset of the controller. We suspect that the problem is related with the camera and controller being on the same fire wire bus.
We instantly see problems when we connect two FW7344s and one video camera on the same fire wire card.

The NIMax program reads Packet Error. I can't recall the first error that our program reads, but I think it typically says something about not being able to communicate return values from the controller to the host computer.
This makes me think that the NI driver on the host does not retry after failing to get return data from the controller. This assumption may be valid with the PCI version, but probably is not with the FireWire version.
It only takes one camera for this problem to happen, but the problem is intermittent.

Connecting Fire Wire to a G4 400 PCI to Use Migratiion Assistant

I get a window saying the the fire Wire will not connect to the G4. I want to transfer the Data from the G4 to the iMac, but it won't connect through Fire Wire.

The following models can be used as target computers:
iMac (Slot Loading) with Firmware version 2.4 or later
iMac (Summer 2000) and all models introduced after July 2000
eMac (all models)
Mac mini (all models)
Power Mac G4 (AGP Graphics) with ATA drive
Power Mac G4 Cube
Power Mac G4 (Gigabit Ethernet) and all models introduced after July 2000
Power Mac G5 (all models)
iBook (FireWire) and all models introduced after September 2000
MacBook (all models)
PowerBook G3 (FireWire)
PowerBook G4 (all models)
MacBook Pro (all models)
Is your G4 in the above list? If so, then please clarify your problem.

Need to "restore/over write" data from ex Fire Wire to internal drive

Let me say up-front that I know little about computers. I backed up my internal drive to my external Fire Wire, as I was going to reinstall Tiger (don't ask me why. It seemed a good idea at the time). Without much thought I checked the clean/erase installation box. (using the Backup 3 download from .mac)
So, when I tried to restore my data, the new install has no record of ever backing up to my Fire Wire, and so won't accept a "Restore" command.
Is there any way I can get my start up drive to rewrite itself from my Fire Wire, or is it (A) a lost cause, or (B) The kind of thing that has to go to the shop?
power mac G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)
power mac G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)
power mac G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Mr Hamilton:
I'm plugged into a Firewire port (I think. Someone else set it up for me. I'll have my friend verify when I see him this week.)
Mr Majordadusma:
I bought my computer four years ago, around this time of year. "About this Mac" says:
1 Ghz PowerPC G4
1MB L3 cache
1.25 GB DDR SDRAM
Startup Disk Untitled
Machine Model: PowerMac3.6
Boot ROM Version: 4.6.0f1
My External hard drive is listed under "ATA Bus". It's an IBM-1C35L.... there are more letters and numbers, but in case it's the serial number, I'm stopping here. In case they tell the model number, I'm hoping this is enough info to identify. The capasidy is 57.27 GB, with 44.1 GB available.
File System: Journeled HFS +
Don't know if this is too much info or not enough.
I will try the things you suggested (or, rather, get my friend to try as I'm pretty much afraid to touch my machine. When I backed-up, my iTunes should have had my music and video library, but even though my games and some other backed-up stuff is there, we haven't been able to bring up my Library's--they come up blank--I'm afraid that I mayhave done something to screw that up, so am leery of messing with my computer). If they do not work, I'll report it back here.
I'll also check back here later, in case my G4 model doesn't allow me to boot from an external drive.

UPGARDING PROBLEMS!!! NO CD Drive on a Power Book Fire Wire

First Of All Hello Everyone:
Here's my problem, a friend of mine ask me for help with he's power book Fire-wire the machine has (768 MB on RAM and 15 GB on HD),To upgrade his OS 9.2 to OS X, but (Here's the real problem) it has no cd or dvd drive, (Actually no cd drive at all), so i can't upgrade it to OSX. I Have tried with an external Iomega CD Drive (Predator Model) but it tells me it can't startup with an external cd drive, or simply doesn't recognize the external device when tried to startup the computer with the "C" key held down.
(It recognize the external cd when it's already stated up in OS 9.2)

Ikaro,
You cannot successfully drag-copy OSX like the 'Classic' OS.
If you could beg/borrow a FW CD-RW, you can boot the OSX CD and install via the burner.
Boot to the FW CD-RW in this manner: Load the OSX CD in the burner, then start up or restart while pressing the 'option' key, then select the OSX CD in the Startup Manager window.
Since you have a 10GB FW HD, you could connect it to another Mac (the host) that has FireWire ports and install OSX on the FW HD. The host should be able to start up to the new install on the FW HD so it can restart to the FW HD and finish up the install. If the host computer cannot boot to the FW HD, just let it restart to the internal HD, copy over CCC (see below), then properly unmount the FW HD. I believe you still should be able to boot the Pismo to the FW HD although I cannot be positive.
Now just connect the FW HD to your Powerbook (FireWire) a.k.a. Pismo, boot to the HD, and use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone a bootable copy to the Pismo's internal HD.
You will first have to download Carbon Copy Cloner from VersionTracker and place it on the host's HD. After finishing installing OSX on the FW HD, drag-copy CCC onto the FW HD. When preparing to CCC to the Pismo's internal HD, make sure you select "make bootable" in CCC's preferences.

Fire wire connection not supported for 30g iPod

Can someone please tell me why my newly purchased 30g video iPod is not supported by Fire wire cable. USB cable would take yrs to down load and updated
thanks

Try the instructions on this page.
(21822)

HDX 18/dv8t IEEE 1394/Fire Wire performance problem in Win 7

The IEEE1394 interface lives on the PCI express bus at IRQ 16, which is shared by several other devices. Audio interfaces, such as the M-Audio Pro Fire and Fire Wire series do not work reliably with the shared IRQ. In Vista, by comparison, the IEEE 1394 interface has its own IRQ, and seems to run more reliably.
Any ideas on how to fix this?

Well, I found a workaround for my issue. It's described in this article:
[url="iPod not recognized correctly on Toshiba laptop"]http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300836[/url]
By disabling the "Sandard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller" in device manager, my iPod was correctly recognized and I was able to sync with iTunes. That's the good news.
The bad news is that: a) Windows warns me that my "device can operate faster if connected to a USB 2.0 port" - and the sync with iTunes runs slowly; b) if I reanable that USB device (as suggested in the Apple article, my iPod is no longer recognized.
For now, I'll just disable this device when I need to sync, then reenable it when done. But this is going to be a pain. I really don't consider this a fix. It's really annoying that the iPod is the only USB device that requires this kind of nonsense.
Looking forward to a "real" fix for this some time soon.

Transferring files from old computer with fire wire

I'm transferring files from my old computer to my new one. The old one has three hard drives. Everything from the startup drive transferred OK over fire wire, but the new computer doesn't see the 2nd and 3rd hard drives on the old one. Is there a way to link these? Thanks!

Click here and follow the instructions, setting up FireWire networking from System Preferences if desired. FireWire Target Disk mode will only connect to the master ATA drive on the ATA 0 bus, and will shut down the computer if there's nothing at that location.
(30151)

Details on booting from a Fire Wire HD

Good day, all
I'm trying to make a bootable back up of my internal hard drive on my old iBook.
I used "Personal Backup X3" to "clone" my drive to a LaCie Fire Wire drive (which is partitioned into two 40 gig parts.
When I boot the iBook (with the LaCie connected) holding down the option key my screen shows my internal hard drive, one curved arrow, and one straight arrow. I infer that the curved arrow rechecks for bootable drives but is that correct? The straight arrow boots the computer from the selected drive.
Since I only see one icon (for my drive), I'm guessing there is a problem seeing the LaCie drive. Could this be because it's partitioned?
Let me know if I'm confused on how this works.
Thanks,
Hugh

Did you correctly partition and format this external drive? See the following:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to two. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Repeat Steps 4-6 for the second volume.
Personally I would use the Restore option of DU to clone your iBook's drive but before you do I would do the following:
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 normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger, and 4.1 for Leopard) and/or TechTool Pro (4.6.1 for Leopard) 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 then boot the iBook to be sure that OS X starts up properly. If it does then clone the drive as follows:
How to Clone Using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the selected partition on the external drive.
Source means the iBook's drive.

Computer not recognizing camera is plugged in (fire wire)

Help! I need to down load some video from a MiniDV to my computer ASAP -- I'm new at this, got the right fire wire cable but when it's plugged in and turned on, the computer is not registering that there's a camera -- it's a Panasonic miniDV.

Hi
my list
Cable
• Sure that You use the FireWire - USB will not work for miniDV tape Cameras
FireWire - Sure not using the accompany USB-Cable but bought a 4-pin to 6-pin FW one ?
• Test another FW-Cable very often the problem maker.
Camera
• Test Your Camera on another Mac so that DV-in still works OK
• Toogle in iMovie pref. Play-back via Camera (on<->off some times)
• Some Cameras has a Menu where You must select DV-out to get it to work
Does Your Camera work on another Mac ?
Sorry to say it is to easy to turn the 6-pin end of the FW-cable 180 deg wrong.
This is lethal to the A/D-chip in the Camera = needs an expensive repair.
(Hard to find out - else than import/export to another Mac ceased to work
everything else is OK eg recording and playback to TV)
Connections
• Daisy Chaining most often doesn’t work (some unique cases - it’s the only way that work (some Canon Cameras ?))
Try to avoid connecting Camera <--> external HD <--> Mac but import directly to the Mac then move
the Movie project to dedicated external hard disk.
Mac
• Free space on internal (start-up) hard disk ? Please specify the amount of free space.
(Other hard disks don't count)
I go for a minmum of 25Gb free space for 4x3 SD Video - and my guess is 5 times more for 16x9 HD ones
after material is imported and edited.
SoftWare
• Delete iMovie pref file may help sometimes. I rather start a new account, log into this and have a re-try.
• Any strange Plug-ins into QuickTime as Perian etc ? Remove and try again.
• FileVault is off ? (hopefully)
Using WHAT versions ? .
• Mac OS - X.5.4 ?
• QuickTime version ? (This is the heart in both iMovie and FinalCut)
• iMovie 8 (7.1.?) ?
• iMovie HD 6 (6.0.4/3) ?
Other ways to import Your miniDV tape.
• Use another Camera. There where tape play-back stations from SONY
but they costed about 2-4 times a normal miniDV Camera.
• If Your Camera works on another Mac. Make an iMovie movie project here and move it
over to Your Mac via an external hard disk.
(HAS TO BE Mac OS Exchange formatted - USB/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange WILL NOT DO)
(Should be a FireWire one - USB/USB2 performs badly)
from LKN 1935.
Hi Bengt W, I tried it all, but nothing worked. Your answer has been helpfull insofar as all the different trials led to the conclusion that there was something wrong with my iMovie software. I therefore threw everything away and reinstalled iMovie from the HD. After that the exportation of DV videos (there has not been any problem with HDV videos) to my Sony camcorders worked properly as it did before. Thank you. LKN 1935
from Karsten.
in addition to Bengt's excellent '9 yards of advice' ..
camera set to 'Play' , not rec/computer/etc.?
camera not on battery, but power-line?
did your Mac 'recognize' this camera before...?
a technical check.
connect camera, on, playback, fw-connected...
click on the Blue Apple, upper left of your screen ..
choose 'About../More..
under Firewire.. what do you read..?
More
• FileVault - Secure that it’s turned off
• Network storage - DOESN’T WORK
• Where did You store/capture/import Your project ?
External USB hard disk = Bad Choise / FireWire = Good
If so it has to be Mac OS Extended formatted
----> UNIX/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange is NOT Working for VIDEO !
Yours Bengt W

Installing the 3 Port Lacie Fire Wire PCI Card

Hello all
After acquiring 2 external Lacie Fire Wire HD's, and wanting to have the ability to connect my Camcorder as well, (without dazzie chaining everything), I decided to get the Lacie 3 Port Fire Wire PCI Card:
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10173
It's my understanding that this will work fine in my 1.8 Single Processsor G5 Desktop.
Correct?
It's my understanding that the Card will be Plug n Play - no drivers neccessary
Correct?
It's my understanding that this will now enable me to select any of the 3 devices plugged into the 3 port card, without having to depend on ONE of them being turned on (as in dazzie chaining them)
Correct?
This will also enable me to continue the use of the other 2 Fire Wire Ports built into the rear of the G5 motherboard?
Is there anything else I need to know?
System Preferences?
Thanx
Mike

It's my understanding that this will work fine in my
1.8 Single Processsor G5 Desktop.
Correct?
correct
It's my understanding that the Card will be Plug n
Play - no drivers neccessary
Correct?
correct
It's my understanding that this will now enable me to
select any of the 3 devices plugged into the 3 port
card, without having to depend on ONE of them being
turned on (as in dazzie chaining them)
Correct?
You should put the camcorder on your G5 internal FW 400 port
and the drives on the LaCie card (FW 800 card I assume).
This keeps the camera on one bus and the HD Drives on their own bus.
This will prevent getting dropped frames on capture.
This will also enable me to continue the use of the
other 2 Fire Wire Ports built into the rear of the G5
motherboard?
Is there anything else I need to know?
While capturing from your Camcorder, don't have any other firewire devices connected to your G5 ports, either front or rear. (though you have multiple ports, the G5 has only one firwire bus serving all the ports.)
That should cover it.

IPod wont sync over fire wire

I have a 30gb Photo iPod and a 1.42 MHZ G4 mac mini. I plugged in the iPod over fire wire and then the iPod loaded the first time. The second time i plugged it in the iPod froze and would so did my computer until i unplugged it by force. Then i plugged it in using the USB 2.0 cable and it mounted perfectly. This is the only computer in my house with USB 2.0 and being there is only 2 USB slots, one for my keyboard and one for my mouse, I do not have the slots to spare. I have rebooted the computer and the ipod. The same thing happens when i plug it in over firewire, both freeze. I have iTunes 4.9 and iPod version 1.2.

I would recommend updating iTunes to 5.0. I've had issues in the past where my iPod was running newer software than iTunes and it caused issues.

I'm getting a very low signal from my Blackbird interface. The fire wire connection is selected properly and track recording sliders set. However the recording level slider in the lower right corner is grayed out. How can I get better signal?

I'm getting a very low signal from my Blackbird interface. The fire wire connection is selected properly and track recording sliders set. However the recording level slider in the lower right corner is grayed out. How can I get better signal?

If it's slow on startup it would be extensions loading or LaunchDaemons starting up.
You should have a look in:
/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/Extensions
You can count out anything in your home folder and it shouldn't put anything in /System as that's reserved for Apple.

How do I connect Apple 20" Cinema Display to orignal MacBook Air which does not have a Fire-Wire port. Is this possible? Any advice would be appreciated. I have the Micro-DVI to DVI adapter. Norm

I Wish to connect my 6 year old Apple 20" Cinema Display to an orignal MacBook Air which does not have a Fire-Wire port. Is this possible? Any advice would be appreciated. I have the Micro-DVI to DVI adapter. Norm

The FireWire cable is just for the FireWire ports on the display. The display will run without it.

Fire Wire Bus load

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