Firewire 800 cable stopped working

I've had two different Firewire 800 cables burn out on me this week. Both times, I accidently unplugged the cable from a WD drive. When I try to use the cable again (with any device), it doesn't work. I can swap the cable out and everything seems to work fine. Do firewire 800 cables really break this easily?

Thanks Nick. The Iomega is the only external drive with which I have experienced any problems so I guess I wasted my money and will need to try another brand.

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The Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 cable?

I have a JVC digital video camera, and have lost some of the cables. Will a Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 cable connected with a Firewire 800 - Firewire 400 cable (same as ieee1394?) transfer the videos to my MacBook Air?

The Thunderbolt to FW 800 cable provides a FW800 port that you can plug into. You can see what it looks like here. If you have a FW cable that will connect to your camera and terminates in a FW800 plug, that should work.

Firewire 800 Cables

I have just changed from Mac Pro with SATA to an iMac i5 so am now trying to get the best from Firewire 800 with RAID0 and 5 drives I was using with SATA. What I noticed was that using a Lacie Flat Firewire 800 cable I was getting just 26Mb/s Read times using Quickbench yet change the cable to the thicker cable that came with the drive I got 85Mb/s from the same drive, some difference.
My question is this, does anyone else have recommendations for good quality Firewire 800 cables because it clearly makes a difference?

Are you sure those cables are 9-pin (fw800) to 6-pin (fw400) cables? I bought a couple of 9pin/6pin cables from monoprice to hook up a couple of external fw400 drives and the cables worked fine.
Here's the link to the cable I am using:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?cid=103&cp_id=10301&cs_id=1030105&pid=3542&seq=1&format=2
Message was edited by: X423424X

Firewire 800 cable connection on 2011 MacBookPro

Hello, I'm really having a hard time finding others online with this problem but we do photo/video and use a Firewire GRAID mini for transferring footage on location, it uses the Firewire 800 cable, the one that came with it as well as third party cables you can buy at radio shack (plastic ends), do not stay plugged in very well and it's really nerve racking when these things come unplugged while Final Cut is doing I/O, and this is not just the drive , they don't firmly sit inside the socket on the Macbook Pro, so our problem is doubled.
Has anyone a good recommendation on a FW800 cable that will solve our problems? I know I've seen some before on other drives that were metal ends and slightly oversized that would stay seated quite well in the Mac, wish I knew where to find those...
(* I know Thunderbolt is the future, we are using Thunderbolt for our studio drives, but want to keep using our phantom powered Firewire GRAID minis for portable work for another year if possible)

Applefutbol,
I'm not sure of the technical details, but I have certainly found that since starting to use FW800 instead of (and sometimes alongside) FW400, my hard drives seem to be a lot more responsive. One of my portable drives, for instance, has both 400 and 800 connectivity. On my desktop I have it connected via FW800 and it is lightning fast when transferring files, but it is distinctly slower when connected via FW400 to the same computer and others.
I'd borrow a cable from someone and test it first, but I do think you'll find it faster in general.
However, if the HV20 is only using FW400, then you will not get any speed increase, as FW works at the speed of the slowest connection.
Message was edited by: Dominic Witherow

Mini Firewire 800 Cables???

I have been searching around the net in hopes of finding a really really small firewire 800 cable which I could use to connect two mobile hard drives together...I have the two drives stuck together with industrial strength velcro, and the ports of the two drives are about an inch apart from each other...I am in need of a Firewire 800 cable that is about 3" inches in length...
I actually have one of these that came with some accessory device I bought a while back (can't recall which accessory exactly)...but I have had no luck finding such a cable for sale individually...I've searched most major computer cable stores online and have had not luck whatsoever...
I was hoping someone might be able to provide me with a link to some site out there that sells cables this short???
Any suggestions? Thanks!

This white Belkin FireWire 800 cable has 18" (45cm). I find this a convenient length (not your desired 3", though
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?MerchantId=&Section_Id=21&pcount=&ProductId=164527
PowerBook G4 15", 1.67GHz (machine model: PowerBook5,6) Mac OS X (10.4.6)

HT1338 What firewire 800 cable do I use?

What firewire 800 cable do I use to connect my mac mini (late 2009) to my Panasonic HDD camcorder?

If a standard FW800 cable is recomended for your camera, use that, if the camera needs a mini connector use that.
Only you know what is on your camera

Firewire 800 cables aren't working...

Hi,
I just bought a couple of Firewire (1394B) cables for my external hard drives. I've been using Firewire 400 to 800 cables without any problems, but when I connect the 800 cable, my drives will not mount on my desktop.
Any suggestions?
I've looked on line but can't seem to find any info.
Thanks!

Are you sure those cables are 9-pin (fw800) to 6-pin (fw400) cables? I bought a couple of 9pin/6pin cables from monoprice to hook up a couple of external fw400 drives and the cables worked fine.
Here's the link to the cable I am using:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?cid=103&cp_id=10301&cs_id=1030105&pid=3542&seq=1&format=2
Message was edited by: X423424X

Firewire 400 to 800 cable not working

Hi
I have just bought a third party Firewire 400 to 800 cable to connect from my Lacie drive's 800 port to the 400 port on my iBook. When I do this, the drive does not mount at all.
Does anyone know why?
best
Aldo

iBook forum this is not. Mac Pros are towers like G5 only Intel.
I would avoid LaCie, but that is me. Also, is the drive bus powered? not good. Have a good power supply?
What did you do last?
Have you run Disk Warrior?
Take the cable back and pick up new FireWire 400 case.
http://www.macsales.com/firewire/
they have cables also.

Firewire 800 hub not working

After two years without incident, all my drives (5) stoped mounting on my 17" Macbook Pro (running Lion). They are connected though a hub -- NitroAV 8 port Firewire 800 hub. I have changed the cable -- no effect. I have tried connecting the drives individually to the port -- they all come up immediately. So I am concluding that it must be the hub itself. Right? But is it usual that such a hub just stops working? What can be wrong, and can it be repaired? Or is it better to just buy another (expensive) one? Thanks for any ideas! Norris

Hi Todd DeNoyer-
Tom offers excellent advice. The only way to narrow this down is one drive at a time.
Are you using a FW800 hub or do you only have one drive?
Some LaCie drives in particular have power supply bricks that can malfunction and give absolutely no clue-the light comes on and the drive spins up. When this happens, the drive with the bad brick will try and draw current from the bus and wreak all kinds of havoc.
Luck-
-DaddyPaycheck

Booting my imac from an external firewire drive suddenly stopped working. Disk still mounts but it will not boot the machine!

I took my MacBook Pro in for repairs and erased the drive for safety AFTER having copied the entire contents to an external firewire 800 drive using SuperDuper!
The copy process made the disk bootable and I was able to boot up my iMac and run it just as if I were working on my MacBook Pro. After a couple of times working this way, the iMac stopped booting from my drive.
The drive shows up when starting up by pressing the option key but then, after a long time, the iMac shows a circle/slash symbol as if it can't find the system files.
If I restart without pressing the option key, the disk mounts on the desktop and I can use it as an external drive just fine! I tried selecting it in System Preferences as the startup disk, but the same thing happens, blank grey screen with the circle/slash.
Since this happened with a Seagat drive - a brand that has failed me in the past many times - I thought it was a disk problem. I had backed up my MacBook pro contents to another Toshiba drive, and booted from there perfectly well for a couple of times...
Until the same thing happened! Thank God I didn't trash the Seagate although it makes very faint clicking noises that will keep me far away from using it again anyway... but that's another story!
iMac runs 10.5.8, the boot disk (and my MacBook) runs on 10.6.8 if that makes any difference... And now I'm scared that when I copy back to my MacBook Pro it might not boot up at all!!!
What gives???
- MerlinCreative

You need to reinstall Snow Leopard onto the external drive:
Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
Do the following:
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard 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 Utilities menu. 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.
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.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install the Combo Updater for the version you prefer from support.apple.com/downloads/.

Will a Firewire 800 hard drive work on my MacBook with Firewire 400?

Hi, I have a MacBook I bought in 2008. The FireWire specs say " Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec"
I am considering a new external hard drive (the Iomega MiniMax) and want to use Firewire for this one. The specs for the hard drive say: "The MiniMax includes 2 fast FireWire 800 interfaces, a USB 2.0 hub, plus a FireWire 400 to 800 cable."
Will this FireWire 400 to 800 cable allow me to plug my FireWire 400 laptop port to this FireWire 800 harddrive port? It sounds like it will but I wanted a sanity check before I order it.
Thanks.

Yes, that should work just fine.
Matt

FireWire 800 Cable

Hello,
I just went to capture some dv tape from my camera to FCE using my Firewire 400 cable that I used with my core duo, but it looks like I need a special FireWire800 cable to work with my newer 27 inch Core i7. Is that the case?
If so, would any of the following cables work, or does anyone suggest something else?
Thanks.
-- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812270193
-- http://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-F019-006-Firewire-Hi-speed/dp/B000AAZQM2
-- http://www.amazon.com/RiteAV-Firewire-4-pin-9-pin-Cable/dp/B000VJJ1EQ
-- http://www.amazon.com/Hosa-Firewire-800-Computer-Cable/dp/B000VB9BVW

I have been using 9->4 pin firewire cables from monoprice.com with my FW800 iMac. Works perfectly.

Plugging in the firewire 800 cable shuts down the computer

This is strange and frustrating. I upgraded the memory and when i inserted the FW 800 cable back in, the computer simply shut off. I reset Pram & Logic board to no avail. Any idea what's happening? All the other ports work fine... Thanks

If you take out the RAM you recently added, does it make the FireWire port work again?

Iomega eGo 2TB USB/Firewire 800 drive not working with Time Machine.

The drive I had for Time Machine died and I replaced it with an iomega eGo 2 TB USB/Firewire 800 drive. Time Machine finds it and backs up the disk when I first boot up but then it seems like the drive goes off line. At that point, when Time Machine tires to back up it can't get the drive to respond and my system hangs. To fix that, I turn off the iomega that fixes the hang up and I get the disconnect without ejecting warning.
I ran disk utility and disk warrior. Both apps reported the disk is fine.
Can any tell me what's up? I'm running OS X 10.7.2
Thanks.

I am having this exact same error with my new iMac 21.5" connected to a brand new Iomega eGo 2 TB Desktop Firewire 800 External Hard Drive (Mac Edition - 34796).
The TimeMachine backup works fine, but as soon as the iMac goes to sleep and wakes back up, TimeMachine doesn't respond well to any commands and all sorts of errors appear on the screen.
I will try the tip here from Kappy and report back later if this works for me.
Kappy, one thing to note is that I'm using the Firewire connection from the iMac to the eGo and experiencing this problem. The eGo has its own power supply too.

Firewire 800 No Longer Working

I have a 2008 Power Mac. I upgraded to Lion with no issues.
I recently reset my Parameter RAM and now neither of my Firewire 800 ports seem to work. The Firewire 400 ports work fine.
Any ideas as to what might correct this issue?

Sorry ...
Mac Pro
Early 2008
2 x 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Xeon
Mac OS X Lion 10.7 (11A511)
I looked up resetting the SMC for my model and followed the istructions.
Shut down.
Unplug the power cord.
Wait 15 seconds. (I waited a little longer)
Plug the power cord back it.
Power up the Mac.
Since doing that, I appear to have lost the FW800 connection.
Any suggestions?

Firewire 800 cable stopped working

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