IMac Firewire 800 port not supplying power

Hi,
The FW800 port on my iMac suddenly stopped supplying power to bus-powered drives.
The same drives work/mount when I use an AC adapter.
Have thoroughly trouble-shot (shooted?) the hard drives/cables on a different computer.
Tried the SMC reset (unplug for 15-seconds).
Anything else I can try before sending it to Apple?
System Details:
iMac
27-inch, Mid 2011
Processor 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63)

I only use one bus powered drive at a time.
Have been using them without issue since I got the iMac in 2011. The drives currently work fine on my MacBook Pro.
Here are the drives I use: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go
Bus powered RAID (2 drives): http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/EliteALmini/RAID/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
Genius Bar it is….

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Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adapter not enough power

Warning to those who own G-Technology G-Raid Mini (Gen3) and a Macbook Pro Retina.
I just received my thunderbolt to firewire 800 adapter from apple yesterday. I hooked it up to the rMBP and plugged in my G-Raid Mini, the G-Raid Mini powers up, but then proceeds to make a beeping noise. The G-Raid Mini will not mount over bus-power thunderbolt to firewire 800 adapter. Although when I plug the G-Raid Mini into wall with power supply and then plug in the thunderbolt to firewire 800 adapter, the drive mounts.
It seems there is not enough thunderbolt bus power to mount a G-Raid Mini (Gen3)...
Has anyone heard otherwise? Can they confirm this doesn't work for them either.
Thanks.

Same for me.
Luckily I tested it is advance of playing a gig at the weekend using Serato.
Complete JOKE!
I can't believe that Apple hasn't considered the fact that the majority of creative professionals need high capacity fast mobile storage.
I suppose we now need to wait for 2Tb Thunderboth enabled SSD drives which by my reckoning will cost more than the MacBook Pro!!!!

Rear FireWire 800 port not working

After installing Leopard, I connected my TimeMachine external FW 800 drive to the rear FW 800 port, but it was not recognized. I also have an external drive connected to the rear FW 400 port, and it works normally. After some experimentation, I found that if I unplug the FW 400 drive, the FW 800 port becomes active allowing the TimeMachine drive to mount. But any time I use the rear FW 400 port, the rear FW 800 port doesn't work.
The front FW 800 port works normally, and I'm using it for TimeMachine. But I'd like to keep the front ports open for tempory use.
Before calling AppleCare about this, I thought I'd see if anyone has any suggestions about things to try.

Thanks--I tried power cycling (as well as some other suggestions found on Mac sites) but so far, nothing has worked. If I start up with just the FW 800 drive connected to the rear port, it mounts. But as soon as I plug a cable in to the adjacent FW 400 port, the FW 800 hard drive dismounts with the error message that it wasn't unmounted properly. The FW 400 cable is connected to a powered FW hub, but none of the devices connected to the hub are powered on. I also tried another FW 400 cable connected directly to a FW 400 hard drive instead of the hub, but the FW 800 drive still won't mount.
I'll call AppleCare and see what they say--not looking forward to taking the Mac Pro into the shop.

2009/2010 iMac Firewire 800 port dead - can anyone help?

My iMac i7 firewire port is dead. I've tried PRAM reset and SMS reset, and clean OS instal. I'm terrified as soemone told me it's connected to logic board and could cost £700 to replace if hardware is faulty. Need firewire port to connect to Pro Tools Digirack 003, have tested it on various other firewire devices and nothing is recognised. Any help would be greatfully appreciated x PS Running Mountain Lion.

Ok, for connecting the camera to the iMac I used a 9-4 pin cable that externally looks like the one you linked in your post and unfortunately I can't test it with other devices.
However, I tried to connect my Iomega MiniMax HDD (1 TB) via FireWire.
The HDD has a 400 FireWire port and I used a cable like this http://www.smelectronics.com/images2/FIREWIRE96.jpg to connect it to the FireWire 800 of the iMac.
Again Snow Leopard can't see the external device.

New imac has only one firewire 800 port?

Is there a hub or repeater you can use instead of daisy chaining. Can't figure out why my old imac has two firewire ports and the new imac has one. How are others managing multiple hard drives? I wish to use a hub for my firewire connections. What is the best way. thanks

You can locate Firewire hubs however they are expensive. I have had 3 Firewire 800 external HD's daisy chained together for 3 years that work flawlessly. The drives I have come with 2 FW 800 ports so this is quite easy, there are several top quality external HD's that are similar including:
OWC Mercury Pro line
Lacie Quadra D2 line (this is what i have)
G-Tech G series line
All of these drives have similar specifications and are all high quality products. I think you will find them to be the most recommended on these forums.
BTW your old iMac had 1 Firewire port and 1 Firewire 800 port not 2 firewire ports.
Regards,
Roger

Daisy chaining external hard drives and a video camera from a single firewire 800 port on my imac

I have only a single firewire 800 port on my imac and want to know if I can daisy chain two external hard drives and my video camera, please? If not is there another solution using USB 2?

Are the external HDs self powered or powered by the FW port? If they are self powered there should not be a problem. If they are port powered they may put a strain on the port's power output but I'n not positive on that.

Firewire 800 port on new MBP not mounting Lacie rugged 500GB drive

Hi all
I've just purchased the new MBP 17" and my Lacie Rugged 500GB drive will not mount.
It will mount over USB though.
I've tried three different FW800 cables and no result.
There are some posts around 10.5.7 update issues, but I've tried everything listed and no dice.
Any help would be appreciated.

I had a Western Digital My Passport Studio model like that. It has nothing to do with cables or your laptop. It has to do with manufacturers who fail to adhere to the proper power standards for the interface. Basically, if the drive demands more power then the port will give, it is never going to work.
I returned my WD to Apple for a refund, and instead tried a SeaGate FreeAgent Go firewire 800 drive. It has worked flawlessly over Firewire on my MacBook Pro, and it even came with both a Fire 800 cable, a firewire 800-to-400 cable, a USB cable, and a special USB power cable so you could draw additional power off the USB ports if a firewire 800 port wasn't putting out sufficient power. That's why I bought it - figured one way or another it had to be able to work on bus power (even if it had taken both the firewire and USB bus in combo to do it).
Another option I've had good luck with in the past is OWC Mercury on the Go drives (eshop.macsales.com). These have always worked fine on bus power for me, but they also have an optional external power supply too, just in case.

Firewire 800 Port back to life after power shutdown?

I experienced a strange event and would like to share it with you for feedback and comments.
During several days the external hard disk connected to the Firewire 800 port of my IMAC caused me increasingly problems, and eventually the disk would not mount at all on the desktop. I connected the disk to the FW800 port of my portable and the disk worked quite fine. I concluded that the FW800 port of the IMAC was damaged. I was preparing myself to contact Apple to get the IMAC repaired.
Then recently we had a general shutdown of power in our town, for several hours.
When the power came back, I had the idea to reconnect the external disk to the FW800 port, and miracle, the disk mounted immediately and has been working fine since.
Is is possible that the ports of the computer come back to life after a power shutdown? How is this possible?
Can I conclude that it is recommended to disconnect a computer from time to time, just to reset some parameters?

Yep, both USB and Firewire ports can get in into a "bad state" and only complete removal of power will reset those chip sets.
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 powering the ports to do stuff like detect when a device is plugged in or wants to wake up the computer. The downside of this is when a bus/port chipset goes into a weird state, locks up, etc., simply power cycling (shutdown & restart) 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 chipset alive. Now let it sit for a minute (give those big power caps in there time to discharge). Now plug stuff back in & start up the Mac. Now see if your USB or Firewire ports work any better.
Even Apple acknowledges this occasional issue...
What to do if your computer won't recognize a FireWire or USB device
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317?viewlocale=en_US
Best of luck!
Patrick

IMac 21.5",3.2 ghz i3. has dead firewire 800 port.

Like it says firewire 800 port does not work. I plug in a known good ext HD. With known good cable. Power light on HD comes on & I can hear it spinning
but it never mounts to desktop. Doesn't show up in Disk utilities either. HD mounts fine if I use usb port. I know FW 800 port on HD & cable are both good
because they work fine on friends 27" iMac. Anybody have any ideas or suggestions. I would really appreciate it.
Thank you in advance
HAPPY HOLIDAYS

I have tryed that. I've also tryed resetting the SMC, & the PRAM. Thank you for the suggestion.
From what I've been reading on this site, it sounds like I don't have any choice but to bring the
iMac into the service center. I am glad I got Apple care. Otherwise I would be screwed. My iMac is just over 1 year old. Once again Thanx for your time & help. Appreciate it. Have a Great Day

How do I connect my 2nd generation Ipod to a Firewire 800 port? It no longer holds a charge and it doesn't power up with the newer generation USB cable. The only way I can sync my Itunes library onto this Ipod is when it is powered...

How do I connect my 2nd generation Ipod to a Firewire 800 port on a new laptop? It no longer holds a charge and it doesn't power up with the newer generation USB cable. The only way I can sync my Itunes library onto this Ipod is when it is powered and connected simultaneously. Pls help.

Try here:
iOS: Not responding or does not turn on
If not successful then time for an appointment at the Genius Bar of an Apple store.

FireWire 800 ports on 12-Core Mac Pro are not working

Just got this machine, suddenly the firewire 800 ports don't work.
Says: FireWire Bus:
Warning: Unable to list FireWire devices.

If it says that with no devices plugged in, it needs to go back to the store for a visit or exchange.
If it only says that with your devices plugged in, I would be more suspicious of the devices than the Mac. But it could be either, so you need some other known-good stuff to make progress.

Broken FireWire-800 port?

Hello,
I've bought a LaCie HDD with especially a FireWire-800 port because I use it to place movies on it and edit it with iMovie. Only when I connect the HDD with FW800 it does not show that it's connected on the iMac, with USB 2.0 it does show it, but that is too slow for me. First I thought it was a cable issue. And I even did an Apple Hardware Test which did not give a negative result. Then I took my HDD to test it on another iMac, there it did work. Does that mean my FireWire 800 port on my iMac is broken? What should I do now?

Greetings,
Your testing does indeed indicate an issue with that port.
Reset the SMC and then test: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Reset the PRAM and then test: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/26871.html
If the issue persists after you follow the above steps, make an appointment with a Mac Genius at an Apple store, contact AppleCare via phone, or contact an Apple Authorized Service Provider for assistance.
Best of luck.

IMac, Firewire 800 issue

I am using a 24-inch iMac with 1GB RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor and running Mac OS X 10.4.11. Since I edit video, I am using Final Cut Pro HD and dealing with files that take up a large amount of space. The LaCie Rugged External Drive that I am using has a FireWire 800 Port, but when I plug in this way, the drive does not show up. The drive does however, work with the regular FireWire 400 Port. This is a problem since the external camera I am using for video capture requires a FireWire to DV cable, and I only have one 400 and one 800 port on the iMac. Using the camera or an external DV deck is also a problem in itself since it is not recognized in Final Cut whenever an external drive of any kind is plugged in. This happens with the LaCie and a Western Digital MyBook that I have. Strangely enough, the Western Digital sometimes does not work with a 400 cable, but works with 800. As soon as the drives are ejected, the camera is recognized. I was curious if someone had an answer to either of these issues, since I do not wish to use the Main Hard drive for these large video files. I am thinking it is some type of issue with the ports but I am not sure. Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide.

I think that there are, in general, a number of issues with the FireWire drivers for the Intel Macs. I had submitted several bug reports with observations and logs of the behavior. I don't think it's the hardware since, if you, say, run a different operating system on the same machine, there are no issues with the drives or cameras (under Linux anyway, never tried Windows).
The behavior changed when I upgraded to Leopard from Tiger. In particular, I could daisy-chain the camera off a FW drive after the upgrade. However, FinalCut experiences more frame-drops on transferring DV video than it did in Tiger. iMovie does not drop any frames at all, and I suspect the two applications are using different frameworks/libraries for accessing the DV video stream. Whereas, under Linux, frames are never dropped.
I'd contact LaCie, though, about the drive not appearing. A lot of those problems stem from firmware problems on their drives (or at least have in the past). You might find a firmware update for your drive on their web-site that would fix the problem.
In the meantime, though, I still maintain that there are issues with FireWire on Intel Macs related to the FireWire drivers.

FireWirer 400 Ports not working, Fix and/or Add PCI FireWire card

Here are some details about my G5:
Hardware Overview:
Machine Name: Power Mac G5
Machine Model:PowerMac7,3
CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (3.0)
Number Of CPUs:2
CPU Speed: 2.3 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.15 GHz
Boot ROM Version:5.2.4f1
Serial Number:XXXXXXXXXXXX
FireWire Bus:
Maximum Speed:Up to 800 Mb/sec
I have two FireWire 400 ports that aren't working. I normally use the FireWire 800 port, which works fine.
I've tried:
- Resetting the NVRAM
- Resetting the PRAM
- Resetting the SMU
I haven't been able to run Apple Hardware Test, it is not on my install disc and I must have lost the separate Apple Hardware Test CD... annoying!
1) First Question - Can I do any more to fix the FireWire ports?
I also have a FireWire PCI card, which looks like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815150103 though I can't be for certain that is that one (PCI card purchased by my business partner 4 years ago and was originally in a PC). It's got 3-ports (2x 800 and 1x 400).
2) Second Question - am I ok to install this FireWire PCI card into the G5?
(how do I identify for sure what make of PCI card it is?)
If so, which slot and how should I go about doing it?
Thank you

Hi sohopigeon, and a warm welcome to the forums!
What to do if your computer won't recognize a FireWire or USB device...
If the issue persists, try these steps:
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Disconnect all devices and all other cables, except the keyboard and mouse cable(s).
3. Disconnect the computer from the power outlet and wait for 3 to 5 minutes.
4. Plug the computer back in and turn it on.
5. Reconnect the device(s) (one at a time if there is more than one) and test. Test with each port if you have more than one.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317
The 7,3 2.3 was PCI-X, I notice this PCI card is NOT for use in PCI-X G5s...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/PCIFW4P/
While this one works in PCI or PCI-X...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/ADS%20Technologies%20Inc./API315/
Not sure about yours, but it does say...
PCI 2.2 compliant and works in 32-/64-bit PCI slot
Works in 3.3v or 5V PCI slot
The one that doesn't work in yours above is also PCI 2.2 compliant.

Plugging in my Firewire 800 Drive Shuts down power on Macbook

I plug in my G Drive Mobile 500GB drive (Bought at the Apple Store) And the moment the metal of the Firewire 800 drive hits the metal of my connector it cuts all power and the Computer shuts down. I can keep the Firewire in the computer and start it back up but it wont recognize.
For the record the drive works completely fine with just USB... Also my Apogee Ensemble works perfectly well in the Firewire 800 port.
Any idea what I should do?

Me three. EZQuest Monsoon 250 Gig hard drive, and I've done a tiny bit more troubleshooting: it happens whether the hard drive is turned on or not (haven't had a chance to try it when the drive isn't even plugged in), and it doesn't make any difference which end of the Firewire cable I plug in first: as soon as the connection is complete, the MacBook shuts down. After the shutdown, it doesn't think it has a battery, but most of the time this resolves itself after a couple of restarts. I haven't tried things like zapping the PRAM. Very annoying, since the hard drive is my primary backup, and I plug it in to my Mac every evening when I get home! I'll just have to shut the Mac down every time I leave work, I guess.

IMac Firewire 800 port not supplying power

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