Firewire ExpressCard unuseable on late 2008 Macbook Pro!?

I bought a Texas Instrument bases ExpressCard for Firewire 400 in order to make my RME Fireface work on the late 2008 Macbook Pro (MBP), since the onboard LSI/Agere chip doesn't like the Fireface 400.
Result:
1. It made OS X freeze out of the blue several times.
2. It is not possible to install it on bootcamped Vista at all.
3. And it leads to upto 30% performance loss on XP.
I did some web search and found a post of someone who tried six (6!) different ExpressCards on Vista and all showed the same "No free resources" error when using Bootcamp. I found no way to solve that and it's likely a problem of the "BIOS".
Also the card (or likely the MBP) made OS X freeze several times and behaves erratic the other times: like not being detected, being detected as new second ExpressCard Firewire Network eventhough it is already in the list. I suspect this to be an electrical problem. To my astonishment the card can be pulled out easily when it should be fixed inside the slot without pushing on it first to unlock it. This always leads to freezing (who wonders)!
Hot plugging the ExpressCard itself on Windows XP is not possible, the driver will shot "Not enough free Resources" just like on Vista until you restart Windows/the MBP.
Hot Plugging cables on my Firewire ExpressCard does not work properly on OS X or Windows XP. On OS X it only recognizes the Fireface to unplug/replug on the ExpressCard if I plug/unplug the Firewire Repeater on the buildin FW800 port. That may be a Fireface driver issue though. On XP it only seems to work by turning off the MBP before plugging the Fireface to the ExpressCard (simply Restart does not seem to work).
ExpressCard on late 2008 MBPs seems to be a mess, but I lack comparison with other cards. Maybe some other people with working ExpressCards can give some feedback?
Fortunately the Fireface is useable via some Fireface Repeaters: external HD, HUB, or in my case a simple Lindy Repeater Cable (aka cable with inbuild repeater).

Now this is a bit shocking:
Having only inserted the ExpressCard leads to 10-20% CPU load (pure system load, not produced by any process) on XP as long as the ExpressCard driver is active (standard Windows TI Firewire driver).
The extra system load completely vanishes once you load the CPU to maximum, but when using Ableton Live even over the inbuild FW800 port performance is at least 30% lower as long as the ExpressCard driver is active.
Even more disturbing the performance loss is happening because the actual CPU load of Live itself is alot higher with the very same load compared to not having the ExpressCard active! :-O
To underline the most curious fact about the latter: It also happens when the ExpressCard isn't even used, it's just inserted alongside the other FW port.
I would like to get some feedback from other late 2008 Macbook Pro users about their own experience with ExpressCards. For me ExpressCard Firewire seems to be out of question under these circumstances. Fortunately the hub/repeater solution works with the inbuild LSI/Agere FW800 port.

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My wife has a late 2008 Macbook Pro as well, which I am assuming I need to run my hard drive. Is there a way to just access just my hard drive without interfering with hers?
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the device you need is an External enclosure for a 2.5" (laptop form factor) SATA drive.
A USB-interface enclosure will be slow, but is adequate for this task and for re-purposing as a backup drive later. A firewire-interface drive would be faster, but is harder to find, more expensive, and faster than needed for this purpose.
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I am an happy user of a late 2008 MacBook pro.
However, with the passing of time, it became slow and the battery also deteriorate (it still quite OK, but it is not like at the beginning).
But let's start from the beginning: the hard drive
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Here is a screenshot taken with iStat Pro:
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Hi!
Thanks for all the answer. Please let me to resume this old and interesting discussion.
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ken94538,
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Micajah10,
rather than a hard drive problem, you might have a faulty internal SATA cable. Do you have an external disk enclosure, or a SATA-to-USB or SATA-to-FireWire adapter? If you can boot from your hard drive without problems when it’s external, but it remains problematic internally, then that could point to the internal SATA cable as the culprit.

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4SNS/1/40000000 LB1T
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Why do you have LION installed on that older machine?
So you say you built a macbook from a bucket of parts eh? Kudos
heres a pic of the battery temp sensor

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(121465)

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Erica M31 wrote:
Is there anyway of directly connecting a Late 2008 MacBook Pro to a MacBook Pro, with retina, in a Target Disk Mode way without having to wait for the magical adapter in July?
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http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/MacBook_Pro_Retina_QuickStart.pdf
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SATA II        (does this matter tese days?)
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The link you posted above is for a WD drive,....dont get it.   WD drives (some) have SMS sensor coflicts with Mac, and the consumer grade western digital HD are the worst you can buy.
Same as used by Apple below, best option, cheapest price.
best likewise replacement 1TB 9.5mm Toshiba
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toshiba-1TB-MQ01ABD100-HDKBB96A1A01-2-5-5400RPM-Laptop-N otebook-9-5mm-HDD-/171120091488?pt=US_Internal_Hard_Disk_Drives&hash=item27d78d 6 160
$68
Stockdizzle
I will need to clone the current drive before it fails; is there an article in this forum on that?
Easy, 3 clicks and sit back and let Superduper CLONE your HD.....about 40 mins average.
Superduper is free and most of the pros use it (or carbon copy cloner)
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
See instruction and get software there<     very very easy to do

Firewire ExpressCard unuseable on late 2008 Macbook Pro!?

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