Trouble with Firewire 400 ports

My firewire ports seem to be working intermittently. Sometimes my external drive will hang when I am trying to back up data to it, and nothing works except to unplug the drive (ouch!). I have tried Force Quit and even tried to shut down the computer. When the drive is hung, I can't get the computer to shut down. The drive light is on, like data is being written, but nothing is going on.
I suspected the drive and tried to use Disk Warrior, but Disk Warrior crashed before it finished rebuilding the directory.
The drive works fine on my other computer, a PowerBook G4, 17 inch running OS X 10.4.
I repaired Disk Permissions, but that doesn't help.
I have several other FireWire drives and they have the same sort of problems when connected to my iMac.
Is there some program I can run to check the FireWire ports?

Try this:
First:
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Disconnect all FireWire 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 FireWire device(s) (one at a time if there is more than one) and test. Test with each FireWire port if you have more than one.
Zapping the PRAM:
After the startup tone, hold down <commandd><option><r> until 3 additional startup tones are heard, then release the 4 keys.
Or you can try resetting the NVRAM
After the startup tone, hold down <command><option><o><f> until the text screen is visible. When text can be entered, type the following commands, followed by the <return> key (there are no space characters in each command):
reset-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all (the Mac will boot up after this command is entered)
Letr me know how you make out,
Miriam

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