Firewire port won't carri power to other devices

Hi, I'm Juan.
I've reading lots of post about firewire troubles, but I can't seem to find my very strange firewire problem!!
Here's the situation:
I once tryed a friend's firewire Alesis Audio Mixer that is powered through firewire and it worked perfectly. Then, (several monthes later) I tryed again, and it didn't work. I mean it didn't even turn on the light of the mixer (sign that, at least, there's electrical signal). Nothing.
Tried different 6pin-6pin cables (all that worked with he's computer and my macbook at least as data signal). Nothing. No electricity.
So I thought, the firewire OI of my macbook is dead.
But, then I connected my macbook to another macbook through firewire and it worked perfectly. I checked on System Profiler and the firewire is there, and it even recognises the device that it's connected.
So I thought, there's no problem with the firewire OI of my macbook .
But, then I tryed and old iPod Mini, using both USB and Firewire IOs. And here is the result of that:
USB: charges the ipod battery and sends data (works as it should be)
Firewire: sends data, but it won't charge the iPod battery.
So, basicly, what a I have here, is a white macbook with a 6 pin 400Mbs Firewire IO (data and power), that is behaving it self like a 4 pin 400Mbs Firewire (only data).
This Firewire IO is transmiting only data, but no electrical power to the devices.
Question:
1) Has anyone ever heard something like this before?
2) Any "home" way to fix this?
3) Should I send my macbook for Tech Support?
Any comment will be appreciated.

Did the drive come with a two headed USB cable and if so did you connect both plugs.  Hard drives powered by a USB port are always a bad idea.  An external hard drive should have its own power supply.
When a USB port is overloaded it instantly turns off the power in an attempt to prevent damage to the USB port.

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