Unique FireWire problem...

I have an odd problem. I have a Macbook Pro that is about two years old which went through a bit of a rough patch. Let's just say the keyboard and screen are not working. But the hard drive is still in good shape. Obviously, it's totally useless to me so I bought a new Macbook Pro in January. I would like to transfer my files to my new Mac and got a firewire cable to do so. Since the keyboard is broken, I am using a seperate Apple keyboard plugged into the USB drive. But, when I start the computer and hold down the "T" on the keyboard, it does not successfully go into Target Disk Mode. If you have any advice, please help!
Message was edited by: emmy2685

emmy2685 wrote:
Since the keyboard is broken, I am using a seperate Apple keyboard plugged into the USB drive. But, when I start the computer and hold down the "T" on the keyboard, it does not successfully go into Target Disk Mode. If you have any advice, please help!
You have the keyboard plugged into the USB drive? That sounds, umm, unusual. Unlike Firewire, most USB devices can't be daisy-chained unless they also include a built-in USB hub.
Did you mean to say that you had the keyboard plugged into a USB port on the old MBP? If not, try doing so.
-David

Similar Messages

Odd network (and Firewire) problems cured by unplugging iMac

I experienced a weird problem with my May 2005 20" iMac G5 running 10.4.2. In October I suddenly lost the ability to connect with one of my computers but not the other. I could connect just fine to the G4 Powerbook running 10.4.3, but could no longer connect to my G4 tower running 10.2.8. The iMac would spend several minutes trying to connect and then the message I got was that the server did not exist or something similar, or sometimes it would say that the version of AFP on the G4 tower was incompatible (I hadn't changed anything). I could still connect from the Powerbook to the G4 tower without any problem so I knew that the tower was OK, and all of the computers were able to print normally through the laser printer on the network. My workaround was to transfer data between the iMac and the tower by going through the Powerbook, but this was a pain since it took twice as long.
Of course I tried rebooting the iMac a number of times, but this did not help. I was thinking it was a software corruption of some sort, and was thinking of wiping the hard drive and reinstalling the whole system (fortunately I hadn't gotten around to doing that yet).
This problem persisted for about 2 months until I also realized that my Firewire ports weren't working either when I tried to hook up a new external Firewire drive. The Firewire ports did not even appear under system profiling. I had a very hard time locating info about troubleshooting the Firewire ports, but finally came across the suggestion to unplug everything from the computer, unplug the iMac from the power and leave it off for a while.
This unplugging cured the Firewire problem and also cured the networking problem!
(I don't know why this worked. I keep the iMac plugged into a UPS to protect it against power outages if that makes any difference.)
(The network configuration: iMac and Powerbook connect to Airport Express via Airport extreme, and the Airport Express is connected to the G4 "Digital Audio" tower through an 8-port Ethernet switch (which also connects to laser printer, a PC, and another very old Mac.))

Chime,
Good news for you. Actually, it's an emphatic YES!
Every ISP I've ever used had fine print explaining that multiple computers require multiple accounts. The interpretation of this is: Every computer you want to have assigned a PUBLIC IP address from your ISP requires it's own account. If you try to get clarification, your ISP will argue it, they want you to pay them more money for unnecessary accounts!
You only need one PUBLIC IP address from the ISP in order to establish internet sharing throughout your house. Your gateway will establish PRIVATE IP addresses for the computers on your home network.
Plug the phone cord into your Base Station (if it has a dial-up modem), the base station then becomes the one PUBLIC computer allowed on your ISP. Configure it to dial out on demand. It becomes the gateway between the internet connection and your internal network.
This is completly legitamate as long as you are sharing over an "in-your-own-home-for-personal-use-only" PRIVATE IP LAN behind your ONE gateway connection.
Not familiar with the new Base Stations, all the older ones had modems. The base station with a modem IS the most convenient way to do this (esp. for dial-up) and provides the best firewall security for the whole network. However, if yours doesn't have a modem, it's still possible to establish internet sharing using one of your computers as the gateway to dial-out and share the connection.
BTW - if BB options are limited, have you considered satellite options (DirecPC, etc.)?
Mark

10.4.7 update and external firewire problems with HD corrupion

Dear all,
Advised by Jpfresno I started this new topic about Tiger 10.4.7 update.
I will repeat my post and what was happening 2 weeks ago:
“In 5 years 10.4.7 update was a tragedy for my Powerbook Ti 667. When I update from 10.4.6 to 10.4.7 my 300 GB firewire drive gets corrupted, after repairing it with DiskWarrior and after connecting it to my PowerBook my computer freezes and I must shut it down via powerbutton. Safari also crashes after the update.
I just erase my Hard Drive and after that install 10.4 and update with combo to 10.4.7. But I had the same problems: finder freezes with connected firewire devices and also safari when browsing. I spend a week trying to solve the problem but no luck.
Yesterday and with no firewire devices, 10.4.7 freeze and I have big trouble in order to started my powerbook!!! Even when i insert the 10.4 install DVD it did not detected my HD. Finally I get it to work and install 10.4 and combo update to 10.4.6 and everything works. My external firewire drive and safari. I already diagnose my HD with disk utility, TechTool and directories with Diskwarrior and everything is ok.
I clone my 10.4.6 to firewire, boot from it and everything is working. I let my external drive connected and finder does not freeze.
My conclusion is that the problem is 10.4.7 update. It only give me problems and I was getting crazy with it. 10.4.6 is working good and I do not advice anyone to update to 10.4.7.”
Last week after reinstalling 10.4.6 I started to have HD problems with my Powerbook 667. I did a surface scan with TechTool I it reported bad sector. Then I done a zero disk format but after a second surface scan TechTool also reported bad sector. Then I take the decision to replace my internal HD. I bought a Samsung 40GB Hard Drive and installed it on my PowerBook. Then I have done a clean installation of 10.4.6 with all applications that I need and clone it to my hard drive with Intego Personal Backup software. Everything works on 10.4.6. and external firewire drive.
After that everything is ok. But I decided to test if my problem derivates from 10.4.7 update or from previous HD corruption. Then I install 10.4.7 update on my Internal Hard Drive. Everything is working good but after connecting my external Hard Drive the finder started to freeze!!!!!!!!!. After that I tried cloning HD to external firewire with Intego personal Backup. Everything was working good but when it was finishing the backup process started to give errors!! I started panic. I interrupted the backup process but after and after restart I found something strange with 10.4.7. The system started up, I login but I could not started any application!!!??? All my application died!
Then I have done one more clean installation of tiger and 10.4.6 update.
My conclusions are that the 10.4.7 update causes all the problems that I have on my PowerBook, because I used the same methods and same software/hardware on 10.4.6 and did no have any problem.
This last two weeks were very difficult to me. I tough that these problems do not happen with Apple computers but I was wrong!!! It is very hard to me to deal with it. I always said to my friends that I never had problems with Apple computers. I accept that a hard drive died because the use of it but I can not accept that a system update cause me 2 weeks of hard problems and make me loose precious work information! I always love apple computers and Apple OS but now I am disappointed
If anyone can explain what happen or have a solution for those problems?
Thanks for the comprehension and collaboration.
Best Regards
Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Hi, alsvieira.
There are some things you did not check in all of your troubleshooting:
1. Run the Apple Hardware Test (AHT) that came the affected computer. See my "Apple Hardware Test" FAQ for comprehensive advice on using the AHT in troubleshooting.
2. re: FireWire troubleshooting: Here is some general troubleshooting advice that may help if problems return with your FireWire drive:1. Review the AppleCare Knowledge Base document "What to do if your computer won't recognize a FireWire device".
2. If this problem occurred after installing a recent Mac OS X Update, and you are also unable to mount CDs, DVDs, or disk images perform the steps in this Mac OS X Hints article. This worked under Panther and may also work in certain situations under Tiger.
3. Power-on the FireWire drive before starting up (booting) your Mac.
4. Reset PRAM and NVRAM.
5. Resett the power-management chip in your Mac.
6. Try a different FireWire port. James Wiebe, CEO of WiebeTech, has published FireWire Port Failures in Host Computers and Peripheral Devices, a white paper providing backgroud information and technical analysis concerning the causes of failure for FireWire ports. This may provide additional diagnostic information.
7. Micromat TechTool Pro version 4 can test the FireWire bus in your computer: this tests the bus — not the ports — but if the problem is on the FireWire bus on the logic board, it should reveal it.
8. Check with the manufacturer of your FireWire drive or enclosure to see if any firware updates are available for such.
9. Hopefully, the partition map on the FireWire drive is not damaged. This can happen if the FireWire drive was not Ejected before being disconnected or powered off. If it still refuses to mount, you may need to employ data recovery tools or services: see my "Data Recovery" FAQ.Note that some of the information above is from the "FireWire Problems" chapter of my book, Troubleshooting Mac® OS X.
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

IMac firewire problems - anyone just replace them?

hi. i know there have been a lot of problems and a lot of posts with the FireWire busses on the aluminum iMacs. I know no Apple solution has been released. But i'm wondering if anybody has had their FW busses on their iMac replaced with a bus using a different chipset than the Agrere(sp?) set. is this possible even? if this ridiculously complicated?

Since the Firewire is soldered onto the logicboard, you'd need an entirely different logicboard design. Unless Apple has used other chipsets, which is unknown, I don't think that's possible. It is more likely one of the issues outlined here needs to be addressed if you are having Firewire problems*:
http://www.macmaps.com/firewirebug2.html
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

Ipod update freeze, firewire problem, possible fix for many.

Hello all,
I've been having a problem with my ipod 3rd gen updating in much the same way as many in this forum have throughout a number of topic threads.
PROBLEM:
During song/playlist/content (not software update or restore) updating function one of two things would happen:
- update would freeze at some point of the transfer (5, 74, 687 songs in to the update) and I would have to force quite itunes and, not being able to dismount the ipod through recommended procedure, I would physically dismount the ipod and receive a scolding for improper dismounting of device.
- system would crash at some point of the transfer yielding the shaded screen and a prompt to restart the computer by depressing the front panel button for two seconds.
In each of the above cases, no matter how many songs that itunes thought it had transferred, I would only have about a dozen songs on the ipod itself, perhaps indicating a bottleneck on the G4 end of the transfer.
DEADENDS FOR ME THAT MAY STILL SOLVE PROBLEM FOR SOME:
- swaping out cables
- ipod software restore or restore to earlier version
SOLUTION:
After contacting Apple support, I was led to the opinion that the problem was with the firewire port itself. This was confirmed by attaching my ipod with my cable to a roomates G5 resulting in a faultless transfer of his song library. I was ready to go out and purchase a new firewire PCI card but decided to research firewire problems in the G4 folder of Discussions. This is where I found the fix to my problem (see links at bottom of document). It would seem that Mac ports, both firewire and USB, have a tendency to bog down after awhile and need to be reset. This can be a addressed by one of three possible solutions. The first and easiest was the solution that worked for me (for other solutions please follow links at bottom of page):
- powered down and disconnected all firewire and USB cables from the G4
- disconnected power cable from G4 (for laptops I would guess that the battery would need to be removed, not sure if that causes any other problems though, please research)and let sit for about 30 minutes.
- reconnected all cables and restarted computer. Ports should be reset at that point
- I took the added measure to restart my computer once with nothing attached to USB and firewire ports and then powering down with front panel button before connecting cables and proceding with final restart.
RESULT:
Faultless transfer of 37.6 gigs of content in less that 45 minutes.
LINKS:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?128@@.68bb1cb3
Dale Weisshaar, "Security Update killed my firewire ports" #1, 08:28pm Sep 27, 2005 CDT
Good Luck
GKE

This worked perfectly for me!!!
SOMEBODY PLEASE TAG THIS POST!!!
i have had the problem that everyone has posted about (i.e. - updated iTunes/iPod software and had the update/freeze problem, tried all solutions, to no avail, and was pretty much screwed.)
JUST DO EXACTLY WHAT HE SAYS TO DO (powermac g5, by the way):
1) power down the computer
2) unplug EVERYTHING (usb, firewire, power, monitor, etc.)
3) leave unplugged for 30 minutes
4) plug power back in
5) power up from main power button
6) wait for computer to start back up, then shut down from power button
7) plug everything back in and power up
8) restart once more for good measure
9) update your ipod
10) take a sigh of relief!
you are seriously a godsend...only one thing...I BOUGHT A NEW ONE ALREADY!!! i literally bought it the day that you posted this solution. After a month and a half of trying to fix this problem, i finally gave up and bought a 20GB iPod Photo with applecare...cost me about $380.
no matter, i think i'm gonna sell my "older" ipod to my mom or dad. they'll use it doing whatever they do. plus, that way, if there's any problem, i can fix it for them without feeling bad about screwing over some stranger.
thanks again, this solution worked perfectly.

Firewire problem since upgraded to 10.4.3

Hi there,
since I have upgraded my iMac G5 to 10.4.3, it is no longer recognising my external Lacie firewire drives. These work fine as I have tried them on a machine running 10.4.1, and they worked fine on the iMac G5 before I upgraded to 10.4.3
The iMac powers the devices but they do not mount or show up in disk utility or apple system profiler...
any ideas?

Robert,
Take a look at this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=260074
Also, which update method did you use when you went to 10.4.3? Did you use Software Update or did you download the update from Apple's website? Some users have reported a resolution of Firewire problems by downloading and installing the 10.4.3 Combo Updater from Apple. You can do this even thought you are already at 10.4.3.
Regards,
Steve M.

Lacie Speakers and Mac Pro Firewire problem waking from sleep and loud feed

Lacie Speakers and Mac Pro Firewire problem waking from sleep and loud feedback. I had a powermac before this with the speakers and it worked fine. But the mac pro is having these issues. Is it the firewire port or the speakers or (and most likely) just a firmware glitch with mac pro? Anyone else see these issues?

http://web.mac.com/jerimydulay/Site/MyAlbums/Pages/Lacie_FirewireMIDI.html
Here is my audio settings. For some reason I wish I could remember what I did. It was actually the Apple Store tech in the Unversity Village in Seattle that gave me the idea and I swear I had to change the settings in MIDI setup. Now that Leopard is out it seems the MIDI stuff has been redone. I included screenshots of my MIDI setup as it is currently to see if you see something different on your computers. Let me know!

The user does not exist or is not unique - workflow problem

I am using Solution Starters Dynamic Management workflow on my Project Server 2010. I was working fine for a year now, but today all workflows were broken when someone tried to submit them to a next stage. "Workflow terminated. An error has occurred
in the workflow."
I tried debbuging the workflow and it seems to be OK, but the problem appears when it needs to assign tasks to the approvers (they are in the Approvers group). When I remove users from the group that represents approvers (and leave that group empty), it
works fine, so I am guessing that users (who need to approve the stage) are the problem. My administrators are saying that there were no updates or changes on AD machine.
I don't have problem with users in any of people picker fields or anywhere else on the site. I am using claims auth.
What could be the reason for this behavior??
These are main errors from the log:
Failed to persist workflow instance: 7dc2e035-cd02-4284-b851-a829e372a809 with error code: 5, instance data size: 29578, internal state: Running, processing id: 1e2211d2-ef7b-4416-90ef-ac041396c200   2f83db27-34da-4275-a42e-0625240af921
The user does not exist or is not unique.
WinWF Internal Error, terminating workflow Id# 7dc2e035-cd02-4284-b851-a829e372a809
System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Specified argument was out of the range of valid values. Parameter name: additionalNodes     at Microsoft.Office.Workflow.Actions.OfficeTask.ProcessTaskError(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Workflow.ComponentModel.ActivityExecutorDelegateInfo`1.ActivityExecutorDelegateOperation.Run(IWorkflowCoreRuntime workflowCoreRuntime)     at System.Workflow.Runtime.Scheduler.Run()

It appears that this isn't the problem with users, but it is a problem with Office Tasks. This is the main error in ULS logs (same as in the previous post):
"Specified argument was out of the range of valid values. Parameter name: additionalNodes"
I noticed that all content types are gone from my pwa site. Is it possible that my workflow is causing problems when adding tasks because somebody deleted all content types??

3G iPod - no more "OK to disconnect" screens, a Firewire problem

I have an old 3G iPod - 15GB with the 4 touch buttons - that still works fine. This is a model that can sync via USB or Firewire, but can only get power from Firewire.
For the first couple of years it synced with a Win2000 machine just fine via Firewire. When syncing was done, the iPod would sit and display a "OK to Disconnect" message. If I elected to sync again, it would just wakeup and sync.
I have moved to a new iMac C2D and I am very happy with the machine in general. However, the iPod is not quite the same.
I decided to restore the iPod and thus use Macintosh formatting - no problem, it works fine. However, now when I sync I never see the "OK to Disconnect" message - instead, once the sync is complete the iPod just unmounts and charges as if it were being powered by the AC adaptor.
That is fine but for one thing - if I wait a couple of minutes, the iPod goes to sleep while charging (like when using the AC adaptor) and the whole Firewire bus seems to take a snooze with it! Once that happens, reconnecting the iPod does nothing and I cannot mount any of my external Firewire hard drives. The only solution is to restart the iMac, and everything is OK again.
My workaround has been to set the iPod to "Enable Disk usage", which forces it to remain mounted and awake. However, it is not supposed to work this way. Any clues??
P.S. - I just tried plugging the iPod into a G4 iBook, and while the Firewire bus does not fail the "OK to Disconnect" screen still does not appear. Hmmm..

Your iPod is probably in hard disk mode. In iTunes, while your Ipod is connected, right click on the iPod and go to options. Make sure that the box next to 'enable disk use' is UNCHECKED. That should fix the problem. Let me know if this works for you.

Firewire problem on MacBook Pro

I have a 15" MacBook pro. I use it with a variety of firewrie devices, camera, video camera, hard drives and it has always worked flawlessly.
Until two days ago. I woke it up from sleep and tried to mount a hard drive. The drive got power but the drive never mounted. I then tried several other drives and they would not work either. These devices work properly on other Macs, including other MacBook Pros. I work at a newspaper and we have a certifed Mac guy on staff. He ordered a new mother board and di the swap. Same problem.
Are ther known problems with firewire on this model? Is it likely that two mother boards ahve the same issue?
Clay

Hi everyone,
My MacbookPro is only 4 month old and this is the second time I have to send it back to Apple because of fried Firewire connection. Clayk have had a problem with external devices that have also fried Firewire connections on three different Mac. Mine is connected to a Cinema Display 20", which imply the classic video connection + an usb connection + a firewire connection (this allow to use the screen as a Firewire hub (2 connections in the back of the screen) as well as 2 USB connections). Is it possible that the Display causes the problem, as it is an externally powered device, which make me think that Clayk story and mine have that in common ?
Has anyone faced equivalent problem ?
How to demonstrate it ?
Will Apple be OK to change the Mac after problems in such cascade ?
Cheers
MacbookPro 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Mac OS X (10.4.10)
MacbookPro 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Camcorder Firewire problem

Help! New iMac 24", 2.8. Firewire 800 has two drives attached, daisy-chained to another -- one is for video capturing / scratch disk, other is for time machine drive. The Firewire 400 port is used for my Canon camcorder. My plan seemed to me a good one. However, when I first connected my camcorder, my time machine drive seemed to unexpectedly "eject" itself, and a warning message appeared basically saying I did not eject it properly. Furthermore, and most disturbing, is that iMovie 08 gave me a "communication error" message and I could not import video no matter what I did. It did detect my camcorder and did seem to communicate enough to make the camcorder play video on its own lcd, but no video actually transferred to the Mac. I tried iMovie 06 and with some luck it seemed to work. That firewire port (400) has worked recently with a different hard drive. Interestingly, when I disconnected both of my 800 drives, the import actually worked in iMovie 08! Yet I need one of those drives as my scratch disk! When I reconnected my scratch disk, the import screen told me my camcorder was disconnected or off! What gives! Help! If it makes a difference, my time machine drive is actually a 400 speed drive daisy-chained to the back of an 800 drive which in turn is connected to my 800 port. Thanks in advance. Frustrated to say the least.

Trouble is in the air Stevo and I can't help you. There is something critically wrong with the firewire system in our new computers! They apparently can read to/from most hard drives, but are leaving many pro and semi-pro users high and dry when it comes to supporting video cameras! I have a two-week old 20" iMac , a brand new Lacie Pro 1TB external triple interface and two Canon XL video cameras. With the Lacie connected via Firewire 800 and a camera connected via Firewire 400, we get a "VTR OK" prompt in FCP for a few seconds, then it switches to 'no communication'. The computer simply isn't seeing the camera properly because of a weak/faulty/cheap firewire system. We've tried to capture directly to our main hard drive without the Lacie connected, and every other permutation we can think of, with no success.
iMovie and FCE will not see our cameras either (or our Panasonic camcorder) so I'm completely stranded with a brand new computer and external hard drive. New firewire cables were also tried, to no avail. Maybe Apple would suggest I buy new $6000 video cameras at random until I find one that hopefully works?
As a home-based videographer, I am now shopping for an entirely new editing system that will NOT include Apple products at ALL. What a shame - I have completed hundreds of video projects using a G4 iMac laptop over the past three years without problems. Keeping Apple in my business venture has now cost me dearly - a $2000 computer that is completely useless and a growing list of clients that aren't receiving my video work. Apple would rather let its customers search for their own answers through vast forums than provide reliable computer technology or meaningful customer support. My affiliation with Apple computers should have stopped when my G4 finally died a peaceful death.

Help! Firewire problem!

I just bought a clamshell ibook on e-bay. I like these machines very much (they're tough and quirky), and in fact I have one already as a second machine, but the one thing I really missed was Firewire.
I went for collection in person, as it wasn't too far away. The previous owner is a nice lady who kept the machine in lovely condition. She'd never used the Firewire at all. While she had it, she'd run Jaguar on it, but had put OS 9 back on it to sell.
I plugged in the DVD drive and put a CD in it. It powered up and ejected its tray when required, but nothing appeared in the Finder (which appears to be all muddled up with the Desktop; I don't think I take to OS9). I tried the portable hard drive (which has a boot system of Tiger in it). The boot loader (boot and press Option) didn't seem to see it, and it didn't appear on the desktop.
On the other hand, nothing reported an error. I ran Apple Hardware Test. It reported no problems. Does the 'logic board' check test the IO as well? More to the point, I looked at the hardware profile, which reported a Firewire device present.
I guessed it seemed more like a driver problem than anything else, so I bought the machine (nervously). It's a lovely little machine, very clean and pretty, I only hope it isn't a lemon...
I had some vague assumption that some sort of System Extension might need to be loaded, but apparently the Firewire one is loaded.
I'd expect filing system/mass storage to work between OS9 and X, because 9 and X both support mass storage (otherwise all those flash drives wouldn't mention 'OS 9 and up' on the packaging) and use Mac OS Extended.
Things power up. The hardware test and system profiler report firewire devices, but nothing appears on the desktop, and the Disk-Utility-type things don't mention the firewire devices.
If it's a problem with the things I want to use being bus-powered that's infuriating. The DVD drive doesn't even have a power-supply, and the tiny hard drive has one somewhere which I've mislaid. I wanted something where I could just dig out the device I wanted to use and attach it, without fuss or extra power bricks or cables. I'd normally assume that there's enough bus power for one device at a time on the system's main port, though, just like USB.
The Help, isn't (starting from the vital point that things will appear on the desktop, and not being forthcoming about what happens when they don't). It did mention powering up the device when it was connected, which is why I started wondering about self-powered external devices.
Sigh. Macs Just Work. Except when they Just Don't.
I don't really intend to use OS9, but I feel I ought to make sure the firewire works before I even think about putting OS X on it.
Regards, Ruth

Replying to my own question in case this bites anybody else in the bum.
The problem was, as I suspected, that OS 9 needs more drivers than OS X does. This is murkified by the point that there is ****-all help about this available in OS 9 Mac Help, which does its best to suggest 'plug it in and it will mount', which suggests it has Mass Storage in the same way that OS X does. This isn't necessarily the case. In OS 9.0.4, which is what this clamshell came with out of the box, it needed drivers for any drives added, even fairly straightforward things like optical drives or (HFS+) hard drives.
Unfortunately, most of the help I could find did not clarify this, and when I mounted the drive I was trying to test on the USB port, OS 9.0.4 (a.k.a. 'junkware excuse for an OS, it's as bad as Windows 95, really it is') told me the drive wasn't formatted and did I want to initialise it, which wasn't what I wanted to hear, especially since I knew it was HFS+ formatted and had a Panther clone from the other clamshell on it.
I tried to run the firmware updater, but it told me it needed at least OS 9.1. At this point I was really tearing my hair out, but luckily a helpful gentleman from my local user group pointed out that Apple supplies an upgrade to 9.1 on the Web, presumably as legacyware for people trying to get OSX onto OSX-supporting OS9 machines.
The helpful gentleman said, upgrade to 9.1, upgrade the firmware, upgrade to 9.2 and you should probably be able to see your externals from that point.
I downloaded it, booted the problem clamshell from its install CD, ran the 9.1 upgrade and the firmware upgrade
(also downloaded from the web) without any problems, and to my surprise discovered that either 9.1 or the firmware upgrade had fixed the problem: I could now mount the DVD-Rom drive and the external HD on Firewire without any problems.
The boot loader on the Option key didn't seem to add the new firewire disc to the list of bootable discs; OTOH selecting it as a startup disc now worked.
Since the machine cloned-from was also a clamshell so I wasn't going to have any major compatibility problems (the only differences were bigger hard drive, more memory, and firewire), I booted from the external and checked everything worked, wiped the internal, and cloned from the external boot disc with Carbon Copy Cloner, then removed the external so it would boot from panther on the internal.
This worked as expected. I'm not sure why I had so many problems with the boot loader (holding down the option key at boot only seemed to show the internal disc), but I've now got a better clamshell with firewire, so if my mac mini breaks I can attach its hard drive (Firewire) to the clamshell, and I can use the clamshell to check my backup DVDs away from home, and I can attach the Topfield hard drive recorder under the telly to the clamshell's USB and spool programmes off it onto the firewire drive which has more space. So I've now got the things I wanted firewire for, and a better clamshell.
The helpful gentleman told me Mac OS 9.0 has far more in common with 8.6 than OS X, and the reason it can't see modern Mass Storage drives is that they came along since Mac OS 9 itself, and were only supported in 9.1. 9.1 actually does have more in common with OS X.
Regards, Ruth

Daisy chaining firewire problems

Hello. So i'm working on a project where the client has 15 4TB firewire drives filled with footage. I've been working with all of them daisy chained together. As you can probably guess, this is causing some issues. Some days I can come in and work for hours and have no crashes. some days, like today, it's hard to even get all 15 drives to mount without the firewire bus crashing and all of the drives unmounting. It's been getting shorter and shorter between crashing episdoes.
They have 7 Lacies, 6 WD's and 2 G-techs. I'm wondering if anyone knows a) if there's an optimal order to put these drives in based on manufacturer, b) if a firewire hub would be any help in this situation, c) any other solutions that wouldn't cost much that could help to make it run more smoothly.
This happens whether it's on a Mac Pro tower (latest Snow Leopard update) or on my MBP 17" (10.5.8)
Anybody done work with lots of drives daisy chained or know any other ways to work with this stuff? thank you...

ApptrGy wrote:
Same Problem. Just got the newest imac i7 from the previous years model, and now my FW 800 drives dont daisy chain, and kick each other off. Worked with the previous model no problem. Major pain not being able to have all the drives mount up together. Any solutions yet with this FW problem?
It's not the same problem and it's not a Firewire issue. You have too much data and too many signals for a single FW bus to handle which is why we recommend editing on the big Macs for anything beyond DV-size codecs. You cannot add an additional FW bus to the iMac.
bogiesan

IPod 3G mounting via Firewire problem

hello,
I've bought an iPod 3G 20gb. All was ok, but I couldn't connect it to my powrbook via firewire. iPod was charging but wasn't seen by computer (itunes, finder nor system profiler). When I plugged the ipod via usb powerbook recoknized it. Unfortunatly it wasn't possible to restore the iPod, becouse the 3rd generation (dock connector) needs firewire to it.
I read that erasing could help, so I did it. Nothing changes. Maybe it, that now I can't use my iPod, becouse it hasn't software....
I thought that firewire cabel is broken - isn't there is no problem to connect ipod mini.
I've seen that some of you had the same problem... Have you solve it?
please help me...

For Mac computer
1. Open the disk utility, hope your iPod appears there (left hand side), highlight it
2. Go to Tab “Partition”, click either “Delete” or “Partition”, if fails, skip this step and go to 3
3. Go to Tab “Erase” , choose Volume Format as “MAC OS Extended (Journaled), and click Erase, again if fails, skip it and go to 4
4. Same as step 3, but open the “Security Options....” and choose “Zero Out Data” before click Erase. It will take 1 to 2 hours to complete.
5. Eject your iPod and do a Reset
6. Connect it with your Mac via Firewire, see whether it can be recognized

Migration Assistant/FireWire problems.... I'm not sure which

I've searched through many of the posts on this subject and I've not found anything similar so I thought that I'd try posting the question.
My lovely wife just bought me a new iMac for my birthday to replace my very old and very abused (also read... incredibly slow iBook G4). I didn't do MA when I first booted it up as I didn't own a FireWire then.
I just bought a FireWire yesterday, plugged it in to both computers and brought up the MA program. It seemed to recognize that that a computer was connected to the other end as it told me to reboot it into "FireWire" mode. I did that and then it never could hook up to the computer again. I've attempted it many different ways and times.
Frankly I'm at the end of my rope and I've been transferring files via BlueTooth just to get some of my old stuff on the new machine.
Hopefully, this is an easy problem for someone out there.

Also if you read in the back posts, Migration Assistant doesn't work well between PowerPC and Intel Macs:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435350&tstart=10
I would say one of the symptoms is just as you've said, it basically times out forever.
Please don't post any more "me toos". If you have a problem and it is not related to solving the original poster's thread, there is a way to post a new topic in this link:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1219&start=0
You'll get a wider audience, and won't confuse the original poster with solutions that don't apply to them.

Unique FireWire problem...

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