Firewire mystery?

Both my firewire ports won't recognize a dang thing. They've just stopped.
I go to the profiler and it says:
FireWire Bus:
Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Does that mean they're alive?!
I've tried the powering down (totally disconnecting everything for 30 mintues) and resetting PRAM (whatever THAT means), but the iMac simply won't recognize the same camera it did yesterday. Could the cord be fried or something? I'm not super literate, so assume I'm handicapped in the realm of computers.

Reset the FW bus - disconnect everything. Turn off the mac. Unplug the mac for 30 minutes. You missed a step.

Similar Messages

  • The Great iMac FireWire Mystery

    I'm stumped on this one and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions.
    A couple of months ago I replaced my mother's mirror door G4 (2x1GHz) with a 20" 2.16GHz Intel iMac (the last of the all-white iMacs). Her G4 had an 80GB and a 60GB internal hard drives, with the 80GB being the boot drive and the 60GB being accessed exclusively by Retrospect to do incremental backups on a nightly basis and a recycle backup once a month. This system worked quite well for the past couple of years.
    Her iMac has a 250GB internal drive. I added a Newer Tech miniStack v2 200GB hard drive which I have connected via FireWire. Using the same Retrospect-based system, backups are performed regularly. However, there's a fly in the ointment. Occasionally and for reasons unknown the computer will unmount the FireWire drive all by itself. This happens regardless of whether the computer is idle or in use. Power cycling the drive will remount it and all is well afterwards -- until the next time. It seems to happen about once every 2-3 days. The drive can be connected for 2-3 days at a time without any problems, but then it just disappears. Poof.
    Things to remove from the list right off the bat...
    1. The miniStack drive is fine, having performed its duties on several other computers in the past and operating flawlessly in the same capacity on other computers (including a MacBook Pro and an aluminum iMac).
    2. OS X is set to sleep the drive when it's not in use. Since the incremental backup process takes less than five minutes a day to complete, having the drive spun up 24/7/365 makes little sense. The drive happily spins up when Retrospect does its thing (assuming the drive is still on the desktop at that time, of course) and the drive happily spins down shortly after Retrospect finishes (again, assuming...). A suggestion of "turn drive sleep off" is not acceptable for this reason, and for the fact that the other computers that the drive was attached to also had drive sleep enabled and didn't have this problem.
    3. The OS X installation (10.4.10) is very clean, having been installed when the iMac was installed. There are no "haxies" or anything weird like that installed. The only "modification" to the system is enabling the DEBUG menu in Safari. When I put the iMac into target disk mode and boot my wife's MacBook Pro from the iMac's hard drive, the miniStack drive does not show this problem. If the OS X installation was to blame then the MacBook Pro should also have lost the drive.
    4. I've also gone the other way, booting the iMac from the MacBook Pro's OS (10.4.8 and 10.4.10) in target disk mode. The problem remains on the iMac.
    5. The iMac itself has been checked out by Tekserve and the Apple Store, both in Manhattan, and has been pronounced 100% without error or problem. The iMac also passes the hardware test provided on the Apple CD and the TechTool Pro diagnostic. All other aspects of the computer perform flawlessly.
    6. The FireWire cable has been replaced, and both the old and new cables are perfectly functional with all other drives and computers tested.
    7. With one exception, other FireWire devices on the iMac seem to work flawlessly in all other regards. I've tried two camcorders, an iSight webcam, a friend's FireWire-to-MIDI box, a DVD burner, and a FireWire CF card adapter. All perform perfectly. The one exception is a 60GB portable FireWire hard drive. This drive performs exactly the same way on the iMac; that is; you can connect it and use it without a problem, but if you keep it connected for 2-3 days it too disappears from the desktop just like the miniStack drive. (I had a 2GB CF card connected to a FireWire CD card adapter, and it was mounted on the desktop as a formatted Mac volume. This card stayed on the desktop for five days without a problem, so the problem seems to be localized to actual hard drives and not just mass storage devices.)
    8. The iMac performs perfectly in target disk mode. I had it in TDM connected to the MacBook Pro for several days and it never disappeared.
    So, I'm at a loss. My current "fix" is to connect the drive to the iMac via USB and that seems to be working. That seems to indicate that it's a FireWire problem but I've never heard of one so specific to one particular category of hardware before (e.g., hard drives). Regardless, that doesn't solve this mystery. Yes, the drive works under USB....but why not FireWire like it should?

    I have been having similar problems with a Mybook FW HD disappearing and remounting at random intervls. I am in the process of replacing it with a Fantom 1000.( I have a 300G Fantom with an Oxford chipsest that has been completley reliable for > 2yrs attached via FW400).
    The Fantom 1000 mounted immediately with FW800, but as it was Fat32 formatted I decided to erase and reformat with MacOS extended using disk utility. I haven't been able to mount the final product, although it is recognized and described by the System. Disk utility can't verify or repair due to a formatting error.. I should mention that disk utility never gave any indication that it had finished the formating.. the blue barber pole was still spinning after 12 hrs
    How long should it take to format a 1T disk?
    Anyway now I am trying using a FW400 port and am about 1 hr into it...... next I will try USB and if that fails I will try to return to FAT 32... I should have quit while I was ahead
    My question .... is this a FW problem, a Fantom problem or a formatting (Disk utility probem)

  • Firewire mystery - help!

    Both my firewire ports won't recognize a dang thing. They've just stopped.
    I go to the profiler and it says:
    FireWire Bus:
    Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
    Does that mean they're alive?!
    I've tried the powering down (totally disconnecting everything for 30 mintues) and resetting PRAM (whatever THAT means), but the iMac simply won't recognize the same camera it did yesterday. Could the cord be fried or something? I'm not super literate, so assume I'm handicapped in the realm of computers.

    After going through technical service via phone, I'm taking the machine into the Apple store in the morning. I'll report back findings - phone tech said it must be "hardware."

  • BAFFLING DV/FIREWIRE MYSTERY ----*** IS GOING ON HERE?

    i there, I have a used g5 at my house that has been inconsistently reading the DV stream, by this I mean that FCP and reads vtr ok and has audio but no video. I try both basic and standard for the device control, but not dice. Sometimes when I swithc it will freeze the first frame of video and hold it. Same for QT and imovie, which leads me to belive that its a firewire problem. So I take my camera and tapes to the local college's mac lab and hook it into their g5 there, SAME FREAKING PROBLEM, which would make one deduce that its either the camera or tape. So i give it one last chance and hook my camera into the college's g4 imacs and wa-la everythings kosher. So what gives? My theory is that its some weird interface problem with the g5 and my model of palmcorder (jvc), but it seems firewire should be standard. any tips would be appreciated as I am pulling my hair out on this on, thanks
    oh btw, i recently did an archive and install with osx if that helps anybody. maybe its some funky firewire pref file?

    Could it be this?
    #30 - Deck recognition after Tiger Upgrade:
    Shane's Stock Answer #30:
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1063600&#1063600
    The credit for this goes to Bob Sidebotham:
    I was just walked through a repair procedure by an Apple Care person, and it fixed my camera recognition problems (I have a Canon XL1 and sometime after installing Tiger, then 10.4.1, various patches (including Quicktime 7.1) and the latest Desktop Video patch, I've been unable to use the camera with Final Cut Express, and attempts to capture would result in a FCE crash).
    The workaround is to download Quicktime manually, after removing the "receipts" which indicate that it is loaded. Specifically, I was told to do the following:
    1. Navigate to Library -> Receipts on your main drive (not from your personal folder).
    2. Remove all files of the form QuickTime*.pkg, where "*" is a version number. E.g. QuickTime600.pkg, QuickTime650.pkg, Quicktime700.pkg and QuickTime701.pkg. This simply tells your system that those packages are not installed.
    3. Go to http://www.apple.com/quicktime/downloads and click on the "download Quicktime" link. DO NOT USE THE AUTOMATIC UPDATE UTILITY. Download QuickTimeInstallerX.dmg. Double click this file (probably on your desktop) and then invoke the installer by double clicking QuickTime701.pkg.
    4. After your computer reboots, you should be able to restart FCP and see your camera.
    Shane

  • Firewire mystery driving me Nuts!

    We are a middle school, build a video yearbook every year. We have about 10 firewire (some with USB2) drives. We have triple a interface Lacie, we have some Silver Porsche Lacies, we have OWC elites and some older Lacies. We have been humming along all year no problem. In the last 2-3 weeks we have had about 5 fail. The data is ok, we think, most of the problems have been on the firewire connection board. We have run Apple Hardware test on two of the machines (they are iMac G5 2.0 ghz) and saw nothing. Everything passed. We are perplexed and scared now to plug anything in. This cannot be a coincidence. What else could be going on? What other tests can we run? I have got to resolve this issue. PLease help!

    To prevent this from happening in the future is there
    anyway you can hookup/mount/dismount the drives
    yourself orhave another instructor do it?
    This could happen, but realistically sometimes I have 60 students in the Lab (we have a double lab - two sets of 30 computers) and my attentions are there. My editors are responsible, but they are still 13-14 year olds and not well versed in the connection protocol.
    That way
    the kids just show up, edit, and leave without ever
    handling the drives. I would think that would be the
    best bet. Then if it happened again you would at
    least eliminate one possibility.
    This would certainly help in my present trouble shooting.
    Also- you say you were able to get the drives working
    by changing the cases and gotten the drives to work.
    Might be a good idea to get each drive up and back up
    crucial data like project files and graphics.
    This is always a concern, but with about 1.5 terabytes of data where do I put it? This is one reason I moved my data to multiple 250 gb drives, if you lost the data on one, you were only out that data, verses larger drives with more of the finish projects in jeopardy.
    Do you have your original tapes? If so, as long as
    you have the tapes, project files, and graphics it
    wouldn't be totally catastrophic to lose your drive.
    You can easily recapture as long as you have the
    original tapes.
    I have always kept that in the back of my mind throughout the year, but now with 2 weeks left, it would be a huge undertaking. With massive amounts of child labor editing throughout the year, redoing would be quite a task.
    I know you probably have a super
    tight budget and probably have to recycle tapes but
    just wanted to throw that at you just in case.
    Used to do that, not any more, way too many problems reusing tapes. Now we just buy them in bulk at tapestockonline.com We reuse tapes for projects that have lesser importance, or could be reshot if needed.
    Thanks for your interest.

  • External hard drive mysteriously disappeared.

    My external hard drive (Firewire) mysteriously disappeared. I can get it to pop up in Disk Utility, but I can't get it to show on the desktop. I've tried it on a few Mac computers. Do you have any idea what happened?

    That's very strange. I don't think I've heard of DU exhibiting that behavior before.
    I presume the reason you don't want to erase the drive is that there is un-backed-up data on it, and that if you could recover that data you could either reformat (erase) or dispose of the drive.
    You may want to try downloading and using the free demo version of one or more of these data recovery utilities:
    Data Rescue II
    FileSalvage
    VirtualLab
    In each case, the demo will show you what files the full version would be able to recover from the drive. You can then decide whether the files you could recover are valuable enough to justify buying the full version of the utility.

  • My computer will not recognize external firewire drives...very mysterious.

    I'm an editor with two 250GB d2 Lacie's and am going crazy over this problem. I've heard plenty about the notorius Lacie issues, mainly involving mounting refusals or even one last week about my friend's bursting into flames. But this one I cannot find the answer to anywhere online and I've been searching all week.
    My computer suddenly does not recognize my drives are connected. They are not listed at all in Disk Utility. I tried repairing disk permissions, I tried repairing the volume with Disk Worrier. I tried unplugging everything and resetting and zapping the P-RAM, and every combination of all that. No dice. I tried booting off of CD-ROM. When I plug them in, I hear them power up and run what sounds like smoothly. I tried another friend's Lacie and it acted the same way. I tried both 400 and 800 firewire ports with various cables.
    What's going on here? Years worth of editing are on those drives! S.O.S.

    it is hard to say what's happening there. have you tried resetting the pmu? http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449.

  • Lion mysteriously erases SSD partition on external FireWire drive.

    I'm not sure whether this is a problem with OS X, my SSD, or my external FireWire drive, so please bear with me.
    Recently, I have been having some hardware problems on my MacBook Pro, and decided to send my computer off to be repaired. Before doing so, I took my Corsair Performance Pro SSD (still on firmware 1.0) out of my machine so that I could boot it from my FireWire 800 drive (Oyen Digital Minipro) onto the school computers.
    Both times I have tried this (and on different machines!) I was able to successfully load my laptop installation. Then, after a few minutes, everything would suddenly freeze up (beach balls, et al) and I would have to shut down the computer. Afterwards, the system would not let me boot back into the external drive, and Disk Utility in the host OS would show that my partition had been completely erased, and that I would have to reformat the drive and restore from Time Machine.
    Is it possible that Lion doesn't like being booted from FireWire drives? My OS X installation is still on 10.7.3 (as I have not had a chance to update yet) so maybe the FireWire driver has been fixed since then? Could this be a problem with my SSD? Or could my FireWire drive be malfunctioning? I have used this enclosure with a non-boot hard drive without any problems in the past.
    Sorry this question is so broad, but I am at a complete loss.

    In the "Current" Volume Scheme, the 8GB partition is on top. The 85GB is below that. Originally, the 20GB partition was between them. There is no grey mass i.e. free space in the middle.
    Is there a grey mass anywhere? top? bottom?
    In other words, do the two white sections that represent the active partitions fill the entire block, or is there any other space that's vacant?
    All volumes on the drive are/were formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I'm not sure but, I think that corresponds to "GUID"...right?
    No, Mac OS X Extended (whether journaled or not) is independent of the partition scheme in use.
    The bottom of the Disk Utility window should report the partition format.

  • FireWire 600 port mystery.  Help solve it?

    I'm trying to connect a Sony HDR-FX7 video camera to my macbook pro, so I can capture my video in FCE. On the camera it reads that is plugged in but the computer does not acknowledge anything. The camera and cable are fine because I tested it on my sister's computer, which is the exact same as mine.
    I'm wondering if there is anyway to reset the port, update software to fix, run some form of diagnostic on it, or if I should just try to get a firewire 800 to 400 cable instead.

    Hello again...
    Just to clarify: My primary computer is running LR 2.2. This is the machine and LR version that I'm experiencing the problems.

  • WEIRD FIREWIRE/DV MYSTERY

    hi there, I have a used g5 at my house that has been inconsistently reading the DV stream, by this I mean that FCP reads vtr ok and has audio but no video. I try both basic and standard for the device control, but not dice. Sometimes when I swithc it will freeze the first frame of video and hold it. Same for QT, which leads me to belive that its a firewire problem. So I take my camera and tapes to the local college's mac lab and hook it into their g5 there, SAME FREAKING PROBLEM, which would make one deduce that its either the camera or tape. So i give it one last chance and hook my camera into the college's g4 imacs and wa-la everythings kosher. So what gives? My theory is that its some weird interface problem with the g5 and my model of palmcorder (jvc), but it seems firewire should be standard. any tips would be appreciated as I am pulling my hair out on this on, thanks

    JVC's camera will probably use FireWire Basic as a device control. But installing QT 7 might also be part of the problem. Here's the fix for the QT problem: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301852
    Also you should be running 10.4.7 and the latest version of QT with FCP 5.0.4 or 5.1.1. as a combo of software.
    Jerry

  • G4 Mini - Can't see CD or internal harddrive, but FireWire is fine

    G'day - if someone has had this problem sovle before, I would appreciate just being pointed to the topic. Otherwise, here's my problem and what I've tried so far. Thanks for any help.
    I'm guessing its a hardware issue - but since my machine's out of warranty if somebody could help me pin point it, I could decide what to do better.
    The Problem:
    Every now and again my computer will freeze upon waking from sleep. Sometimes it will be fine until I click on an item on the dock. It seems that it crashes when it needs to access the harddrive.
    Upon restarting I get the flashing finder/question mark icon.
    If I bung in my Tiger CD-ROM and restart holding 'C' the computer returns to the flashing icon.
    If I hold option on startup, neither the hard drive or the cd-rom show up to boot from. If I've powered up my FireWire Backup drive I can see my cloned volume.
    The CD is now stuck in there until the problem fixes itself. I can't eject the cd with the mouse button or through open firmware.
    Things I've tried:
    I've booted from my FireWire. The CD and HD do not appear on the desktop and are not listed in Disk Utilty or the Choose Startup Disk dialog.
    I've also tried resetting the PMU and PRAM. No dice, I think. Sometimes a few reboots after resetting the PMU the problem fixes itself - but this is probably a coincedence.
    Mysteriously the problem is fixed:
    Sometimes a couple reboots after a PMU reset while I'm trying to eject the cd with the mouse button - suddenly the cd will eject and the computer boot normally.
    The proximity of this to the PMU reset could just be chance, I suppose, since I'm actively fixing it.
    It could be something else. Or it could be fixing itself randomly.
    Any help is very much appreciated as I'm finding it hard to my honours with this problem
    Mac Mini G4 1.42 512mb Mac OS X (10.4.5)

    I have the same problem, no solution as of yet, i will try resetting the PMU and see what happens.
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=608574&tstart=15

  • Why won't my FireWire HD partitions stay mounted on my desktop?

    Why won't my FireWire HD partitions stay mounted on my desktop? I recenly purchased a quad interface 500GB external HD from OWC (which is connected via FW800). I then partitioned it for TIME MACHINE, some room for a backup of my primary HD, and partitions for boot disks for LION, SNOW LEOPARD, & TIGER. All partitions seem to be OK as well as the backup I made of my primary HD (using SuperDuper). My Energy Saver prefs are set to sleep the display in 3 minutes and the Hard Drive in 15 minutes. I fried one of my processors on the old Quicksilver by setting the Hard Drive sleep to NEVER. Don't want to make that mistake again on this Mac Mini, but I'm afraid that it is these prefs that are causing the primary internal HD to sleep, and at the same time lose my new external HD. Mysteriously, I have a SimpleTech 160GB HD with two partitions connected via USB2.0 and these NEVER dissappear.
    Anyone have some helpful advice? It would be greatly appreciated.

    Well, it's now Sunday, around 11:00am. What I have discovered has nothing at all to do with Energy Saver prefs as I had previously suspected. This morning, after having unchecked the box that would "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible," I woke the computer and discovered that once again all partitions of my new external hard drive were no longer mounted. So I thought of trying something new.
    Because I believed it to be insignificant, I failed to mention that this hard drive has two FireWire 800 ports. One is connected directly to the Mac Mini, the other I used to daisy chain a connection to my iSight camera (FireWire 400) using a bilingual cable. I wondered if the daisy chain might be causing a problem somehow. Incidentally, the iSight camera launches iChat whenever I turn the new HD off and then on again. An action which has always caused the missing partitions to mount. iChat launches even if the aperture cover is closed (turns camera off). Note: connected this way the iSight camera has been working fine.
    So this is what I tried next. I simply unplugged the bilingual cord connecting my iSight camera. The first time the computer went to sleep, when I woke it again all the partitions were right where they should be. So I took the next step by once again checking the box next to "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible.” Now the Energy Saver prefs are once again set exactly the way they were before I bought this new drive. I left for church at 7:45 and returned around 11:00am. Again, when I woke the computer all partitions of the new drive were exactly where they should be.
    So, problem gone. But now how do I connect my iSight camera? And why is it causing all the partitions for the external drive to drop from the desktop every time the computer sleeps?
    I have a son in the Navy and use the iSight to video chat when he is overseas. Is there something obviously wrong about the way I had the iSight camera connected? I would certainly welcome any help or suggestions.
    Thanks in advance,
                   —Lakerunner

  • Can anyone help with this mystery?

    This is a bit of a mystery to me - recently published two web photo galleries - they work fine - BUT some additional text is showing up on the published file but not the actual iWeb page on my computer.
    "+ Add Photo" now appears next to the Play Slideshow text/button.
    The bottom of the page now has a button which says "Clear" followed by a red line that runs across the page and the text show below appears below it. Pressing "Clear" removes the text, but the button remains.
    # Exception: TypeError
    # Message  : Result of expression 'html.plaintextgsub' [undefined] is not a func tion.
    # File     : Comments.js, Line:44
    # Exception: TypeError
    # Message  : Result of expression 'html.plaintextgsub' [undefined] is not a func tion.
    # File     : Comments.js, Line:44

    Slight problem - the majority of the site was built with iWeb 08 - the l got my new computer (27" iMac with iWeb 09) - then it went back to Apple (Firewire 800 port issue), then the second new one arrived, and that went back to Apple (Display issues - much talked about on the Forum), still waiting on my third "new" machine (February) - so working on my old G5 machine, which only has iWeb 08.
    Is it possible that having updated the site to iWeb 09 on the new machine and then having gone back to iWeb 08 on the old machine is causing the problem?

  • Safari 5.1 has mysteriously reverted to version 5.0.5!

    I downloaded and installed the Safari 5.1 update as soon as it showed up in Software Update. I really like the new Reading List feature, so there is no chance that I wasn't using Safari 5.1. This morning, I opened Safari to find the Reading List icon (reading glasses) missing from the Bookmarks Bar. When I checked the  version number, I saw that Safari had mysteriously reverted to version 5.0.5!
    How is this possible? I feel like I've wandered into the Twilight Zone! Any comments on what could have happened?

    My only other boot volume is an external firewire drive I've been using to test OS X Lion. There's no chance at all that I accidentally upgraded that volume instead. Here's the proof:
    When I reinstalled Safari 5.1, the Reading List contained the articles that were there before Safari reverted to version 5.0.5. If Safari 5.1 were being installed for the first time, the Reading List would be empty, as it was when I originally updated Safari (the day the 5.1 update came out).
    I'm stumped. Thanks for your input!

  • FireWire devices doesn't mount nor are recognized by OSX

    A known issue but with several solucions posted but nothing seems to help me out...
    Something is wrong with the FireWire of my Powerbook G4 667 MHz. External harddrives as soundcards as iPods as anything with a FireWire interface won't mount. However, it seems that the devices are getting electricity, Ipods charge for example. But doesn't appear on the desktop. Nor in the System Profiler. Disk Utility doesn't "see" the drives either. I have been trying with reseting the computer, the VRAM and the VPRAM. Also taken out the battery and left the computer alone for a while. No results. And of course, I have been searching the forums and diskussions like crazy but haven't found a solution.
    Anyone who can give me some leads about what I can do next? A clue in this mystery is that I used a Pocketdrive to move files in between the Mac and a PC. I worked fine for 10 times or so, but then suddenly the Mac didn't mount it. First I thought that it was just that harddrive that had some problems (from the PC, I might haven't emptied the trashbin the last time I disconnected it from the PC) but then I realized that no FireWire deviced worked any longer.
    Thanks in advance

    Hi, jorgengun. Try running the Apple Hardware Test CD that came with your Powerbook, and see whether it reports any problem with your FireWire controller or port. It's possible that your port has gone bad, in which case the timing was probably just coincidental — it's unlikely that anything that happened on the PC could have caused your Powerbook's port to be damaged.
    If you don't have Apple Hardware Test, a TechTool Pro or TechTool Deluxe CD has similar hardware testing abilities. (TTD was supplied by Apple to the purchasers of AppleCare Extended Protection plans, and is not available otherwise as far as I know. TTP is a commercial product.)
    If you don't have any of the above, and all of the devices that no longer work when connected to the port did indeed work in the past, take the Powerbook to the Genius Bar at an Apple Store, or to a local Apple dealership, and have the port tested.
    A bad port would necessitate one of two things: a logic board replacement, or the purchase of a CardBus-slot Firewire card.

Maybe you are looking for