Firewire ports go bye-bye

Suddenly I am unable to use devices through my firewire ports. They do not show up in ABOUT THIS MAC, More Info.
Any clues.....????
Gracias!!!
emac Mac OS X (10.3.9)

biffff,
Welcome to the Apple Discussions!
A momentary powerglitch or plugging in a Firewire device with a faulty ground likely caused teh Firewire bus's fuses to latch up. Reset the eMac's switching Firewire bus triple fuses by removing all peripherals other than the keyboard and mouse, then removing the power cord from the side of the eMac (to remove the trickle current drawn by modern electronics even when nominally off) and waiting 15+ minutes. Then reattach the power cord only and restart. Check Apple’s System Profiler (in Applications/ Utilities) and confirm that the Firewire bus is recognized. Reattach peripherals one at a time, checking System Profiler after each to confirm the addition is recognized. If Firewire drops put of System Profiler after adding a particular device, repeat the process but swap a known-good Firewire cable with the suspect device; that will let you narrow it down to the device or to the cable. An Uninterruptible Power Supply will protect the Mac from power glitches and brownouts.

Similar Messages

Installed 10.5.3 update and bye bye

I have never had one issue with my mac ever. I installed Leopard and everything was fine, I got my first OSX update and installed it. As soon as it was done I started having problems just about any program I was in online or offline would run for a bit but slowly, then I would move the mouse or click something and there was the spinning ball of death, and then the program would crash. So then it would pop up the would u like to report box and I would say yes, and typing it would pop up another box but when I would fill out the problem and push send it would say (and I can't remember exactly) but could not send and another 2 or 3 box's would pop up. After about 4 times filling them out and sending and it saying not sent. I just hit ignore or no. Still all my programs dyeing on me I thought maybe I should reboot. So I did and my computer has been gone ever since I only get the apple and spinner but before that the world in a box followed by the finder file ? file. I have taken to the genius bar they did a bunch of stuff, to no outcome, and I bought a 500GB external hard drive and tried to boot off macbook save everything then erase and reinstall and transfer back. done every trick everyone has said to do run every fix program I have been given or have and they all say everything is fine and all my hardware is running perfectly, it just seems to be saying that there is no Osx installed to boot from and wont boot off other mac either. What has happend. And is apple gonna step up and help. Because from what I have read online this has happend to a bunch of people? HELP!

Thanks MacJack, u were close let me clarify. I went to apples genius bar twice we started with the basics like option start to boot no go, he tried a couple other things, like a control option shift delete thing that ran a test I passed. Eventualy he broke out his own personal external HD with every os on it and booted from there sorta it showd his HD and A secondary one (mine) he checked and all my stuff was still there. But he found nothing to fix he commented on how clean my computer and system was, but long line not a lot of time. With his HD disconnected nothing had changed we ran the tech tool pro test which checks every piece of harware in your computer and I passed all. We ran the test at the option start mode that is offered and it offers two test basic and extended we ran extended now this is an apple test and says right under extended if you pass you have no hardware issues and that u should call apple and ask them if they are having any issues with any of your software. Passed. So guy says I think what we should do is just leave it here I'll boot up from my HD back up all your stuff. Then erase and reinstall everything up to the software upgrade, then plug my HD back in and put all your stuff back. But he said 8 days and 150$ so I said I'll sleep ok it. He then gives me a number to a local shop here in town thats been keeping mac users going here for 23 years I think 25 something like that he says they'll do it cheaper same day. So I go there same routine and outcome but he says 65$ but no back up to external HD he says hes going to remove my HD replace with brand new install everything, then sled my old HD boot it off the now new HD and put back, this includes extra labor charges he does not know how much and the cost of whatever new HD I choose. So I say what's the 65$ for minnimum just to touch it. I ask why a new HD when every test says it's fine. He want's to guarantee his work. I decline a few days later thinking about how dumb I am for not have backing up my HD along time ago, I think I need a external HD anyway why not go buy one install mac osx 10.4 & 10.5. And then boot my own computer off my own external HD and back up, erase reinstall and transfer back. Then I have a back up of my own I should have already had. Back at the apple store talk to guy about it he says ya great Idea helps me pick out a HD and I'm off untill I get home and can't figure out how he and the other dude had there install software installed on there external HDs so I call the HD company, they say don't do that. Why? Blahh blahh blahh. What do u suggest. He says do u have another mac with osx on it ? Yes. Connect them together USB, FireWire however u want your computer will boot up from that drive connect your external HD to the other computer and back up all your stuff disconnect everything reconnect your computer erase reinstall plug in HD transfer your Gold. Whooooo hooooo! I'm elated except two days of trying and it will not boot off of anything. (except dudes) HD which HD guy says is bad news danger! And yes I have never had a single problem nor heard of a mac that just stops running, untill now I have found hundreds of people that had the same thing happen no solutions (for the ore intell macs) anyway. Just yesterday I found a blog were a whole High school who all had iMac G4s round base just like mine installed the Leopard update and bye bye for all there network. Apples gotta know if our machines are in great shape as far as hardware then installing a software update that eats your computers brain, is something they should step up and fix. At there cost.

BSODs lock ups and flakey firewire port - help ??

Okay I'm really getting fustrated over this laptop it's nearly 2 weeks old
and I've already had 2 BSODs the odd crash where the mouse moves but nothing
else around it works so a forced reboot was needed.
Today I had a BSOD all i did was run some untility from the taskbar called
network doctor or something.
error message:
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (no address information supplied)
STOP: 0x00000000050
someone suggested that I may have a memory problem or my page file is corrupt.
anyway here's a run down on what i've installed so far with my laptop.
- Installed all XP security updates and patches
- Installed Firefox 1.0.1 (don't trust IE6.0 yet)
- Installed iriver download manager (my mp3 player)
- Installed winamp 2.0 and Creative Notebook Cam.
I've ran a forced boot chkdsk and no problems found.
Another thing I found interesting was nearly everytime my laptop bsods I usually
find a a yellow marker over my 1394 net adapter (firewire port) in device mananger
("cannot start device") don't know if that's related or not. A reboot seems to
clear this yellow marker but I am rather unhappy BSODs are no laughing matter.
My laptop model is the Equium A60-181 (Intel P4 HT 3.2Ghz 512Mb RAM)
Anyone else had similar problems or recommendations?
cheers,
Richard S.

Hi Richard
I understand you that you are unhappy with this all problems but there can be a lot of reasons for that. In my opinion this can happened because of some unnecessary update or some drivers installed by third-party software that you installed on your notebook.
Please reinstall OS using Recovery CD. After firs boot check in device manager if there is some hardware problem. If not you than try to start Config free (Connectivity doctor) and some other Toshiba tools to check if everything is ok.
If everything is ok try to install SP2 if you dont have it on your machine (just SP2 and not separately updates and patches). I am not sure but some of A60 are delivered with SP2.
Install all your programs slowly and follow carefully what happened after every step that you done.

Why would the Firewire Port and/or External DVD-RW suddenly not work?

Hi, it's me again. I swear, I must be destined to just use Windows machines...
Anyways, I have a used/refurbished iBook G3 500MHz 320MB RAM Dual USB (1 Firewire)laptop running OS 10.2.8 that I bought a few months ago. I went and purchased an external Firewire/USB 2.0 DVD-RW drive as I only had a CD-ROM drive on my machine and I wanted the option to burn CD's or watch/read data from DVD's (I know that with my slow processor writing DVD's -other than data- would be a stretch and have other machines to do that with anyways so it wasn't a concern really). I received it and installed it, also installed the free version of Toast that came with it, and the drive worked fine. I have not needed to use the drive since then and have not used the laptop much at all since then really, but I do need to say that I did end up adding a new user account, though I can't remember if I changed the original Admin account and then still have the one I created myself when I first started the laptop after I bought it (had a fresh install of Jaguar on it, but I have no disk to re-install with if needed) or if I created a separate (new) account and ended up deleting the Original Admin accout (I know in Windows, you cannot delete the original Admin account but I do not know if that is the same for OSX or not). I did this as I wanted a master Admin account that I just wouldn't really use and then wanted the other as my main account (and use it to connect to my home windows network) and for some reason it would not let me put a check in the box to allow that account to do so (from either Apple or my user accounts) and so I know that my main user account now is set up to allow it (was it the old Apple user account or a new one, I can't remember- sorry).
Ok, so that is the back story to my problem, which happens to be this:
I just bought a new chip of RAM (512MB to make it a machine with 576MB RAM total) and as I had been looking at getting OSX Tiger (but didn't want to do it without the extra ram and had been considering Panther instead as well), I thought it was necessary if I wanted to not bog down my machine. I bought the Install Disks on DVD for Panther, as well as an upgrade disk (DVD again) for Tiger, therefore letting me use the External Firewire DVD-RW to install Panther, and if I liked I could go ahead and upgrade to Tiger (and if I didn't like it too much, or it slowed things down too much etc, then I could always go back to panther and have both available for future options). The extra RAM coming in handy here definitely.
So I was going to install the RAM today, and decided to go ahead and test out the External DVD to make sure it could boot from it (before making any changes to my system) and then go and install the RAM, and after that, install Panther to start... But I plugged all the cords and cables in, used my laptop with AC power even, and I could not get the External to show up at all... (kinda like the very current post right below mine but for the G4- it worked before, but now the firewire External just does not show up).
I only have USB 1.1 on this laptop obviously, and I don't even know if you could do a boot from an external with USB 2.0 if my laptop had it (the DVD player does). I was recommended to boot with an external firewire DVD or firewire to another machine with DVD capabilities to do the install. So my problem right now is getting slightly bigger, as of course, I can't seem to momentarily find the stuff that came with the External (spare USB cable to check and see if the laptop will recognize it at least with that and to show it is the firewire that is not working properly, or the disk that I used to install it -might have been only used to install Toast free version if it didn't need any drivers, but I don't know where that or the instructions for installation sheet currently is -- I am looking for it, but I have switched bedrooms just last week and I also seem to be missing a few other Windows laptop disks as well so there is a good chance that they are all together, I just need to figure out where, heh.)
I am waiting currently before installing the memory, though if I don't get the External working tonight, I may go ahead and do it first as at least I will have more memory on my laptop then, until I can get other stuff functioning and be able to do the Panther install.
But my main question is, is there something that would cause an installed external to suddenly not show up in OSX? Since I hadn't used it since that one day, and it was unplugged from the laptop itself, would that end up doing it, or more likely, the changing of the user accounts (though I have been trying to test it with different types of media and through both of my user account (which are both "admin" ones), though I do still have one of those being an account that was on there when the External DVD was first installed, so it really shouldn't have done this at all (one would think). So how big of a chance is it that the firewire has somehow gone dead and this is the main culprit to my wasting the past 4 hours on this???
I am currently scavenging around for an extra USB cable to try and test the External that way and will post the results when I can... I love the look and idea of macs, now I have a mac and want to upgrade it even, but why is it that whenever I attempt to use it after having not used it for a bit (and try to make the iBook feel better by using it more as I am sure it feels sad and alone sitting on the shelf while my Windows Laptop gets more attention), or try to fix it when it can be made better (and therefore used more often), the mac (all macs really), just seem to get all pissy and cause problems and make me spend hours upon hours trying to get things to work again??? You have to admit it, I am "mac cursed"... sigh I can program in 4 or 5 computer languages and am very advanced at many tech things (the ones I am not as good at I am still usually Average or Medium skilled) so it makes me wonder why I have so many tech problems with Macs when they are supposed to be the "easy" OS to use...

Actually, I think I have it all working now. After going back to the Plextor Website, I found out that the switch between the USB and 1394 ports only gets activated (switched over to the other) with you turn the device off first, move the switch and then turn it back on. I was sure that I had done this with the ibook, but maybe not as when I went back and did it with first the USB and then the Firewire cables, it did work. I definitely knew that I had not done this with the Windows laptop, the reason it would not have the USB work for me on it.
but back to the iBook, I was confused as it was only showing up as a DVD-ROM (which I guess is what they do until you actually open up the burning software to then be able to burn to it), and it also had the wrong Model #, which after more research, showed that it was the Internal DVD drive model version (PX-708A) compared to the actual model version (PX-708UF) which is the USB/Firewire (External) model. The firmware was really out of date as well (from June 2004 I think, v1.06) and they had v1.12 from Spet/Oct 2006 available so I went to get that (which was a hassle). They had nice easy Windows self extractor/installer packs, and then the BIN files for use for all systems (Sun OS/ Mac OSX/ Mac OS/ Linux etc as well as usable for Windows), and those needed a special Firmware Updater Application which was OS specific. Only I had the hardest time trying to get the OSX one as it would send me to a FTP site and not give me any clues as to which file(s) I needed to get and the Mac OS version was just for older 9.2 or below versions and didn't want to install under the OS Classic mode.
I ended up using my windows computer which made it easier to view with the FTP stuff as I have FireFTP in Firefox, and downloaded the files I thought I needed (to test out), and then realized my silliness, and just downloaded (as well) the Windows Auto Extractor/Installer as the Firmware is the same for all OS's, just the way to install/update it was different... So I hooked the DVD drive to my PC and updated the firmware, checked it out on here before moving it back to the ibook, where I checked that it still worked and had the new update version showing, which it did, and now I have my fully working and newly updated drive ready for the OSX installations... I had attempted to update my Jaguar system as well while online, but it had no new updates available (I guess those were all mostly Tiger updates that were just recently released).
I am now off to install my additional RAM, and after checking that it all shows up correctly, I will go ahead and do the Panther Install (and test it out and see if I like it or not).
For anyone that currently uses Panther on any mac, are there still any major problems I should know about before hand, or know about things that they have mostly fixed (like the issues with Firewire ports and External Drives that they had around the time Panther was first released for example)???
Thanks to all that helped... I now know to attempt an "eject" of any external HD (which I do have one that I will setup to use after I get Panther on the ibook) or CD/DVD drive instead of just unplugging the USB/Firewire cable.

Full Firewire Port Failure (three different machines : iMac Intel, iMac G5, Black Macbook)

I'm experiencing a failure of all FireWire ports on all of my three machines. I believe this problem began with a faulty external, FireWire powered hard drive from G-Tech. Here are all my specs, followed by a rundown of the order of events that has lead to this situation, followed by the various troubleshooting I have done.
Equipment :
iMac Aluminum Intel - 24" Mid 2007 - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 1 FW400 and 1 FW800 ports disabled
iMac G5 - 20" - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 2 FW400 ports disabled
MacBook - 13" black Early 2008 - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 1 FW400 port disabled
2 500GB G-Drives (by G-Tech) - AC powered
1 5TB G-RAID Drive (by G-Tech) - AC powered
1 250GB G-Drive Mini (by G-Tech) - FW powered
Initial Setup :
1 500GB G-Drive connected directly to iMac Intel via FW800
1 500GB G-Drive connected to first 500GB G-Drive via FW800 (daisy chained)
1 250GB G-Drive connected to second 500GB G-Drive via FW400 (daisy chained)
1 5TB G-RAID connected directly to iMac Intel via FW800>400 adapter
Sequence of Events :
I had transferred some files to my G-Drive Mini in order to move them to my MacBook from my iMac Intel. I copied the files to the G-Drive Mini and ejected it normally and plugged it into my MacBook via FW400. The drive would not mount, and the power indication light would not go on. After experimenting with various connections and cables I was able to get the drive to power with FW400 and USB connected at the same time, but the drive would still not mount.
I then plugged the G-Drive Mini back into the 2nd 500GB G-Drive as it was previously connected via FW400. This action caused the G-Drive to immediately reboot and eject itself from my iMac Intel.
I then attempted to plug the G-Drive Mini into my older iMac G5 via FW400. Immediately upon plugging in, the computer shut down, and would not restart.
At this point I kind of started to freak out. I was unaware of the extent of the damage, but was upset that the FW powered G-Drive Mini had shutdown my iMac G5. I contacted G-Tech Support and they offered to replace the drive and instructed me how to manually reset the computer's SMC by opening up the iMac and finding the Cuda switch. This worked and the computer was able to start and function again, but the FW400 port seemed to be disabled.
I then tried to swap out configurations and drives on my iMac Intel to see if there was any cable problems, but doing so, slowly rendered all my FireWire ports useless. It's almost as if the act of plugging in the FW-powered G-Drive Mini started a kind of shortout chain reaction. I soon learned that none of my hard drives would connect to any of my three machines, with any kind of cable combination via FW400 or 800.
I am currently able to connect my 5TB G-RAID drive to any machine via USB, as well as my G-Drive Mini. I am unable to access the other two external hard drives, as one has only FW400 and 800 ports and the other's USB connection is not functional as well on any machine.
Troubleshooting Steps Taken :
I have on all machines, reset the SMC in the following methods. iMac G5 - manually, by opening the case and pressing Cuda switch. iMac Intel - unplug, hold power button, restart method. MacBook - unplug, hold power button, restart method.
I have also on all machines, reset the PRAM by the Cmnd + Opt + P + R method at startup.
I have also unplugged all cables / removed battery, from all machines and left alone for a period of at least 12 hours, then re-plugged in each device one at a time.
I have also restored my hibernate mode (through Terminal) on my iMac Intel to mode 3 and also turned on Virtual Memory in system preferences and set hibernatemode to mode 7, the restarted and attempted to plug in devices. The reason I even began to deal with the hibernate mode was because I had around the same time my ports began malfunctioning, installed the DeepSleep widget, which allows you to control your computer's hibernate mode. I thought that tweaking with this setting may have made my computer incapable of recognizing devices that were plugged in. I have since uninstalled the widget and experimented with different hibernatemodes to no avail.
I also have Repaired Disk Permissions and Repaired Disk on all my machines, from within my Admin User as well as from the OsX Install Disk.
Sometimes in my System Profiler (like right now for example on my iMac Intel) my computer is "Unable to list FireWire devices," but sometimes, no warning message comes up and it simply displays the appropriate Bus speed.
I also conducted a system restore using a backup from my 5TB G-Raid Drive via USB, to a date before these problems started, but my ports are still not working.
Summary :
I am looking at a situation where all my FW ports on all my computers appear to be disabled, and possibly also on my four external hard drives, with one possible USB port malfunction on one external drive. The only root of this seems to be a malfunctioning FW-powered external hard drive.
Is this possible? Has this happened to anyone else before? G-Tech assures me that it is impossible for my 250GB G-Drive Mini to draw enough power from a computer to permanently disable any ports, but I have tried all of the FW port problem troubleshooting steps and am at a loss.
I do not have AppleCare and would like to avoid bringing two iMacs, a MacBook and four hard drives to the Apple store and take my chances with the geniuses.
I would appreciate any help or advice you all have. Thanks for reading and for your support!

Ok. So if that was too confusing, I've re-labeled this post with letters for my hard drives and some mapping of the connectivity configurations I have attempted.
Equipment :
iMac Aluminum Intel - 24" Mid 2007 - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 1 FW400 and 1 FW800 ports disabled
iMac G5 - 20" - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 2 FW400 ports disabled
MacBook - 13" black Early 2008 - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 1 FW400 port disabled
1 500GB G-Drive (by G-Tech) w/ no USB port - AC powered : A
1 500GB G-Drive (by G-Tech) w/ USB port - AC powered : B
1 5TB G-RAID Drive (by G-Tech) - AC powered : C
1 250GB G-Drive Mini (by G-Tech) - FW powered : D
Initial Setup :
C > FW400-800 adapter > iMac Intel
D > FW400 > A > FW800 > B > FW800 > iMac Intel
Sequence of Events :
D > FW400 > MacBook
I had transferred some files to my G-Drive Mini D in order to move them to my MacBook from my iMac Intel. I copied the files to the G-Drive Mini D and ejected it normally and plugged it into my MacBook via FW400. The drive would not mount, and the power indication light would not go on. After experimenting with various connections and cables I was able to get the drive to power with FW400 and USB connected at the same time, but the drive would still not mount.
D > FW400 > A > FW800 > B > FW800 > iMac Intel
I then plugged the G-Drive Mini D back into the 2nd 500GB G-Drive A as it was previously connected via FW400. This action caused the G-Drive to immediately reboot and eject itself from my iMac Intel.
D > FW400 > iMac G5
I then attempted to plug the G-Drive Mini into my older iMac G5 via FW400. Immediately upon plugging in, the computer shut down, and would not restart.
At this point I kind of started to freak out. I was unaware of the extent of the damage, but was upset that the FW powered G-Drive Mini D had shutdown my iMac G5. I contacted G-Tech Support and they offered to replace the drive and instructed me how to manually reset the computer's SMC by opening up the iMac and finding the Cuda switch. This worked and the computer was able to start and function again, but the FW400 port seemed to be disabled.
I then tried to swap out configurations and drives on my iMac Intel to see if there was any cable problems, but doing so, slowly rendered all my FireWire ports useless. It's almost as if the act of plugging in the FW-powered G-Drive Mini D started a kind of shortout chain reaction. I soon learned that none of my hard drives would connect to any of my three machines, with any kind of cable combination via FW400 or 800.
D > USB > AnyMachine
C > USB > AnyMachine
I am currently able to connect my 5TB G-RAID C drive to any machine via USB, as well as my G-Drive Mini D. I am unable to access the other two external hard drives, as one has only FW400 and 800 ports (A) and the other's USB connection is not functional as well on any machine (B).
Troubleshooting Steps Taken :
I have on all machines, reset the SMC in the following methods. iMac G5 - manually, by opening the case and pressing Cuda switch. iMac Intel - unplug, hold power button, restart method. MacBook - unplug, hold power button, restart method.
I have also on all machines, reset the PRAM by the Cmnd + Opt + P + R method at startup.
I have also unplugged all cables / removed battery, from all machines and left alone for a period of at least 12 hours, then re-plugged in each device one at a time.
I have also restored my hibernate mode (through Terminal) on my iMac Intel to mode 3 and also turned on Virtual Memory in system preferences and set hibernatemode to mode 7, the restarted and attempted to plug in devices. The reason I even began to deal with the hibernate mode was because I had around the same time my ports began malfunctioning, installed the DeepSleep widget, which allows you to control your computer's hibernate mode. I thought that tweaking with this setting may have made my computer incapable of recognizing devices that were plugged in. I have since uninstalled the widget and experimented with different hibernatemodes to no avail.
I also have Repaired Disk Permissions and Repaired Disk on all my machines, from within my Admin User as well as from the OsX Install Disk.
Sometimes in my System Profiler (like right now for example on my iMac Intel) my computer is "Unable to list FireWire devices," but sometimes, no warning message comes up and it simply displays the appropriate Bus speed.
I also conducted a system restore using a backup from my 5TB G-Raid Drive C via USB, to a date before these problems started, but my ports are still not working.
Summary :
I am looking at a situation where all my FW ports on all my computers appear to be disabled, and possibly also on my four external hard drives (A, B, C, D), with one possible USB port malfunction on one external drive (B). The only root of this seems to be a malfunctioning FW-powered external hard drive.
Is this possible? Has this happened to anyone else before? G-Tech assures me that it is impossible for my 250GB G-Drive Mini D to draw enough power from a computer to permanently disable any ports, but I have tried all of the FW port problem troubleshooting steps and am at a loss.
I do not have AppleCare and would like to avoid bringing two iMacs, a MacBook and four hard drives to the Apple store and take my chances with the geniuses.
I would appreciate any help or advice you all have. Thanks for reading and for your support!

Firewire port not working Mac Mini (G4 1.25ghz)

Hi,
The firewire port isn't working on my mac mini, I've tried several devices, but none are connecting. I was wondering if anyone else was having this issue and possibly a solution. The only software installed on the computer since the firewire worked last was Apple updates, so maybe other mini's lost firewire somewhere along the way.
Thanks, and Thanks
W

This worked from Smokerz in the Power Mac G4 forum:
1. Shut-down your Mac, and unplug the power cord
2. Turn the power off on your external FireWire devices
3. Unplug the FireWire devices from the Mac
4. Wait for 5 min.
5. Plug the power cord to your Mac only
6. For PPC Macs: Restart the Mac while holding the Option-Apple-O-F, and keep holding until you get the ">" prompt, then release the keys
7. At the ">" prompt type:
reset-nvram and hit the Return key
set-defaults and hit the Return key
reset-all and hit the Return key
the last command will restart your mac
8. Shut down your Mac
9. Connect all your FireWire devices to the Mac and turn them on
10. Restart your Mac.
Works fine now thanks Smokerz!!!!!
also repaired permission and reset PRAM, nothing worked until I did this.
W

How How can i install Mountain Lion with faulty firewire ports??

Basically the firewire ports are fried on my MBP 3.1 (2007). My mac used to take hang on blue screen and take 10 mins to boot but I solved this problem by installing an ssd and deleting the following kext file...
/System/Library/Extensions/IOFireWireFamily.kext
My MBP now boots in under 20 seconds so if anybody is having the same issue then there is the resolotion..
Anyway these are the steps I have taken but failed to properly install ML.
Dowloaded Mountain Lion at least 3 times from the App store to make sure the download wasn't corrupted.
I even tried making a Lion Bootdisk so I can install Mountain Lion on a USB drive (Install ESD.dmg).
I have even tried installing Lion first thinking I would take it one version at a time but gets stuck on boot screen too.
I even changed my hard drive to a new blank SSD drive to see any difference.
Each time I install Mountain Lion or Lion, everything is good until the installer has to restart the laptop.
Laptop gets stuck at the grey boot screen with the Apple logo and the loading circle. Nothing ever happens after.
I always had to use/boot to the Snow Leopard CD so I can restart the laptop back to the Snow Leopard OS and then update to 10.6.8.
I am guessing it is the ML dmg reinstalling the above file ( /System/Library/Extensions/IOFireWireFamily.kext ) which is leading to the same issue because of the faulty firewire ports.
Is there anyway I can resolve this because its doing my head in and Snow Leopard is old and doesnt support newer software that I would like to use.
Any help would be kindly appreciated. Thanks

Kurt Lang wrote:
Just some thoughts.
I presume you already partitioned the new SSD drive as GUID?
Is there anything on the new drive at all yet, or anything that isn't already backed up? If not, you could try erasing the drive and then installing OS X from the bootable flash drive installer you made.
Ive tried that and yes it is GUID. Im going to get grey hairs soon and Im not even 30 lol .... yet
I am not going to buy a new logic board as its just not logical (sorry for the pun) I got the mac for free and I want to spend as little money as possible. Im running out of ideas though

My MacBook Pro can't find the FireWire port

My MacBook Pro (OSX 10.6.8) can not find the FireWire port. Until now there hasn't been any problems using the FireWire, but now it just deny any knowledge of it, so to speak.
The audio device lights up when I connect it to the MBP (yes, I did connect it when in off-mode), so it seems to work in a way.
Does anyone recognize this problem and knows how to solve it?
/JohanLaMar

Have you tried following through the trouble shooting tips in this knowledge base article on Firewire?

I have a MacBook Pro Mid 2012. I have a sony DCR-PC350E . How do i transfer the video to the laptop ? I have firewire cable. But not able to find the firewire port in the video camera.

Need help.

The DCR-350e is a miniDV camcorder. It has a FireWire port, but it's not on the camera itself, it's on the cradle (aka "Handycam Station") that should have come with your camcorder. You need to insert the camera into the cradle in order to capture video via FireWire.
Here's a link to the Owners Manual. See p. 142 for a diagram that shows the DV (iLink) port on the cradle.
You also need an appropriate cable to connect to your MacBook Pro. Check your MBP to see what port(s) it has:
Some 2012 MBPs have a FW800 port, in which case you need a 4-pin to 9-pin FW cable like this one.
Some 2012 MBPs only have a Thunderbolt port, in which case you need the Apple Thunderbolt-FireWire Adapter in addition to the FireWire cable.

How can I tell if my firewire port is faulty?

I recently cannot import video from my canon elura 100 which connects using a 4-6pin firewire cable. I thought maybe it was the cable so I grabbed my brother's black macbook and it seems to import fine, it still isn't 100% smooth like I think it should be but when I plugged the camera back into my black macbook, the video that was being imported just kept freezing and it seemed warped. I tried this process a few times and kept getting the same results. I feel as though I may have a firewire port issue. How could I check on my own. I know that when I use my firewire 410, I have no problems so I don't know what could be wrong. Any help?

Did any of your problems start with Snow Leopard, is your brother's machine running the same version of SL.
Over in the audio forum there are those having some problems with their firewire interfaces. (glitches, static...etc)
pancenter-

I can't sync with FireWire port and I can't charge with USB port!!

Hi. I've a old model of iPod (M9244Y). After the last update, my iPod does sync with the FireWire port.
I tried with another PCs and Mac but it does work. Finaly I buyed an USB cable and this one syncs but not charge.
I've restored to early versions of iPod Updaters but it does not work again. Can I do somethig to fix it?
Why I can't sync with the FireWire port?
Please help me, I can't live without iPod, I can't live without music!!!

Do you have other Firewire devices? Do they work? Could be the FW ports are not working right.
First thing to do is reset the FW chip set on the mother board. Unfortunately, when you power down the computer there is always a bit of power still applied to the motherboard to keep things alive and this usually includes the ports to do stuff like detect when a device wants to wake up the computer. The downside of this is when a bus/port chipset goes into a weird state, power cycling the computer won't work.
So first thing to try is resetting the chipset and to do this you have to power down the computer and completely unplug the computer from the wall power (unplug the power cord to your Mac). Also unplug everything from the Mac's ports (USB, FW, Ethernet, etc.) to make sure no parasitic power is still there to keep the chip alive. Now let it sit for ten minutes (give those big power caps in there time to discharge). Now plug it back in, start up the Mac and see if your FW ports and the drive work any better.
Patrick

No FireWire ports were found on MacBook Pro 15.4" running Mac OS 10.6.4

Hello all,
I recently bought a Mac Book Pro with Intel Core i7 and 2,66 GHz with a 4 GB RAM. The system is good, until I connected my external hard drive from Mac Way that connects to the laptop through a Firewire 800. The HD mounts well with a USB but not with a Firewire 800. I then went to the System Profiler and found this message in Hardware/Firewire - No FireWire ports were found.
I restarted the system and the system hangs or takes like three minutes to start, usually it starts in less than a minute. So I pressed on the power button for 5 seconds and again started the machine.
This time, surprise the HD mounts and in the Firewire in System Profiler, I have Firewire Bus, and when I click on it I have OEM ATA Device 00 and below
OEM ATA Device 00:
Manufacturer: DMI
Model: 0x0
GUID: 0x30E002E0000983
Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec
Connection Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec
Sub-units:
OEM ATA Device 00 Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x10483
Unit Spec ID: 0x609E
Firmware Revision: 0x120
Product Revision Level:
Sub-units:
OEM ATA Device 00 SBP-LUN:
Capacity: 2 TB (2 000 398 934 016 bytes)
Removable Media: Yes
BSD Name: disk1
Partition Map Type: APM (Apple Partition Map)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
BW Time Machine:
Capacity: 2 TB (2 000 263 774 208 bytes)
Available: 779,33 GB (779 328 532 480 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk1s10
Mount Point: /Volumes/BW Time Machine
I am able to use the Time Machine function.
Does any wise ones have suggestions out there? Thanks in advance for your kind help.

https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Websites+or+add-ons+incorrectly+report+incompatible+browser

TS3850 I am using a Sony HBR -VLU camera to import into Final Cut 10. Plugging into an I MAc that doesn't have a firewire port. The camera is not being recognized by the computer. The camera is set to play tape too. Why is camera not recognized?

I am trying to import from the camera into an I-MAC. I'm told the I-mac does not have the firewire port, but has thunderbolt. Is the only way to get video from the camera via a firewire port? Is someone giving me bad information as to the firewire port not being on the I-MAC? The camera is not being recognized. Thanks in advance.

Apple has moved on from Firewire and the current iMacs (and most MBPs) have Thunderbolt, USB3 and USB2.
There are Firewire toThunderbolt adaptors. Here's one. You also want a four pin to nine pin FW cable to run from your camera to the adaptor.
Russ

Audigy platinum ex firewire port

We are having great difficulty using the firewire port on an audigy platinum ex. The audigy has worked very well for three years. The machine is an AMD Athlon 2GHz, AOpen m/board, Win XP with SP2.
We recently bought a LaCie d2 extreme 200GB triple interface HD. When connected to the port on the external audigy box, or to the port on the rear of the PCI card, this dri've is not recognosed by the computer. It does not appear as a HD in the hard disk section of the device manager, and we can see no evidence of a firewire client running, though the PCI OHCI Compliant IEEE394 Host Controller is installed and working. From this we conclude that the OS is set up for firewire devices, but that for some reason it is not being detected.
When we connect the LaCie dri've to a USB2 port on the machine, the device works fine; we can see the dri've, access it for directory & file lists, and read & write files to/from the dri've. We have also tried the LaCie on other machines fitted with USB2, with Win2000 & Win98 and it works fine. We therefore conclude that the LaCie does not have a fault itself. This hard dri've has its own power supply, and is not reliant on the power capabilities of either IEEE394 or USB2.
We have 'discussed' the matter with LaCie. They have asked us whether the IEEE394 port we are experiencing difficulty with is engineered only for DV, or whether it is engineered to be connected to mass storage device such as a hard dri've. We were unaware that ther were such differences with IEEE394, and we have no way of checking this; the Creative labs specification does not go into this detail.
Therefore, the questions we would like to pose to the community are as follows:
. Is this port known for certain to be engineered for the attachment of mass storage devices?
2. Has any body actually attached a mass storage device to the external dri've box port or the port on the audigy PCI card?
3. has anybody actually use da LaCie d2 extreme 200GB dri've on these ports?
4. What set-up procedures were followed to get a LaCie to work?
Although we are 'newbie' status on this site we do have considerable experience of computers and computing going back to 966, and covering most types of machine that have been extant in the intervening period. This includews working with PC's since 983 and as systems engineers on Unix technical workstations. This problem does illustrate that no matter what ones experience level is, there is always something that can baffle, as this has done to us.
We'd like to thank in advance anybody who can contribute information to solve this problem, or indeed anybody who reads the posting and could point us in the right direction.
Regards
John Smith

I have been using a Maxtor One Touch external USB/Firewire hard dri've and a Canon digital camcorder on the Platinum Audigy Ex Firewire port for over a year with no problems except for the time the plug on the extension cable inadvertently got pulled out of the back of the Ex box when I moved some equipment around.
I am running Windows XP Professional SP2, and I upgraded to it after I started using the Audigy Platinum Ex Firewire port. No problems either before or after.
Bit Pusher

Problem importing video from a DV camera into the new imovie 10.0? I have a Sony DCR TRV17 connected via Firewire port that worked in 9.0.9 but not under 10.0...

I have a Sony DCR TRV17 that I used to pass through VCR tape video via Firewire port to my Mac Pro under Imovie 9.0.9 without an issue. Now under Imovie 10.0 the video shows in the import window, I can start recording yet when I stop recording the recorded clips do not show up anywhere. The movie file I'm creating still indicates that I still need to import video. Anyone having similar problems?

Hey Dave,
I had this issue only once before but was lucky enought to find it was a specific event causing the import to freeze. It took me some time to isolate the problem though. I would recommend letting it sit there for some time before you try any troubleshooting. Larger libraries can take long periods of time to update.
This is a good thread for this issue. I would first try removing the iMovie.plist as elikness mentions.
1. Open Finder
2. Click on "Go" in the menu bar.
3. Click on Go To Folder on the dropdown menu.
4. Type "~/Library/Preferences/" in the text field and click Go.
5. Find the com.apple.iMovie(some number).plist file and move it to Trash.
Quit and relaunch iMovie to see if this took care of the issue before attempting the next step. If you're still having an issue then you can try what I needed to do which is isolating the problem event.
1. Open Finder.
2. Go to the Movies folder. You should see iMovie Events here.
If you have a larger event library I'd recommend renaming the iMovie Events folder to say, "iMovie Events COPY". Then create a new empty folder named “iMovie Events”. When you launch iMovie 9.0.9 all events will be missing at this point. Quit iMovie if it is open. Then you can either drag each event from iMovie Events COPY to iMovie Events or you can select and drag several at a time. Each time you drag an event folder back into the new iMovie Events folder launch iMovie 9.0.9 to see if you are having the same issue. Wash and repeat until either you have found the problem event or you have imported all events.
If you find the problem event you can reimport the clip from iMovie 9.0.9 by going to File > Import > Movies and navigating to that events iMovie Original Movies folder to find the clip.
Hope this helps!

Firewire ports go bye-bye

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