Using Firewire to connect external hardrive

I recently had my hard drive crash, so i bought a Western Digital My Book 500GB portable hardrive with firewire 400. I can connect the drive fine with USB 2.0, but not with the firewire. Everytime I turn on the drive it powers down. I've been looking for driver updates both from western digital and mac, but still no luck. Any thoughts?

Are you using the drive's external power supply? You may not have sufficient power from the FireWire port to power the drive from the bus, especially if it's a full size drive.
There are no drivers needed. If you continue having a problem you should contact the vendor or WD directly for tech support.
Note that some WD drive systems do not work reliably or at all with Macs. Discuss this with WD.

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Connecting External hardrive

i connected my external hardrive to the airport but it will not pull it up on the computer how come?

Please describe in more detail what you did and what you are trying to do.

Have been using FireWire 800 connection for WD MyBook Studio

Have been using firewire800 with my WD MyBook Studio primarily for Time Machine backup. May need to be replaced - if I replace with WD MyBook for Mac or something else ( perhaps Seagate) with usb2.0 will I notice a big change in time for TM? If I transfer files to another ext drive, will I notice longer time saving iTunes or iPhoto to an express drive??
Any comments or suggestions are welcome. I have always used WD but wonder if Seagate or someone else has something.
Thanks

WD electronics in their external drives don't have a very good reputation, so another brand might be a good idea. I like OWC drives as many of them use Oxford chipsets as well as multiple connections like USB and Firewire (I prefer a Firewire connection). Some examples are this or this.
I use a BackPack to get my external drive off the desktop, which is a handy way to mount it.

When using time machine with external hardrive to backup, some music items from iTunes and some photos from iPhoto do not transfer to backup hardrive. What am I ding wrong? Using latest version of mountain lion.

When I use time machine with my external harddrive to back up computer, some music from iTunes library, and some photos from iPhoto library are missing when I check backup disk. I am using latest version of mountain lion. Am I doing something wrong?

First, Time Machine doesn't completely back up the iPhoto library while iPhoto is running. Make sure you quit iPhoto after making any changes to allow a backup to take place.
This simple procedure will clear your Time Machine settings, including both overt and hidden exclusions. If you have a long exclusion list that can't be recreated easily, you may prefer a more complicated procedure that preserves the exclusion list. In that case, ask for instructions. Otherwise, do as follows.
Triple-click the line below to select it:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Reveal
from the contextual menu. A Finder window should open with a file selected. Copy it to the Desktop. Then move it (the original, not the copy) to the Trash. You'll be prompted for your administrator password. Reboot, recreate your settings in the Time Machine preference pane, and run a backup to test. If TM now performs as expected, delete the file you copied to the Desktop.

Use macbook pro as external firewire cd drive to reformat iBookG4 with boot disk?

My cd drive has failed on my iBook. Can I use firewire to connect my iBook to my macbook pro and use the macbooks cd drive as an external bootable drive?
Thanks!

That's a good idea. You may be able to do that. Plug your iBook into your MacBook Pro using your firewire cable, start your MacBook Pro up (with the disk inside of the MacBook Pro's optical drive) while holding down the "T" key on your MacBook Pro's keyboard (make sure you get a large firewire icon on the MacBook Pro's display), start up your iBook while holding down the "Option" key until you get a screen displaying available boot drives. If all goes well, you should see your iBook's internal hard drive, your MacBook Pro's hard drive, and hopefully the disk in the MacBook Pro's optical drive. Use the arrow keys or trackpad on your iBook to select the drive you wish to boot from and if all works properly, your iBook should boot.

Using an external hardrive

hey guys!!
did a search for this but could not find the right answer!
just got an external HD (lacie 300gb) and using firewire to connect, power up and i can see the icon on my desktop, doi just drag files over to it please?
and if i want to back up iphoto, itunes etc how do i go about doing this?
can i also back up my entire imac drive and all its files please?
sorry as its the first time i have used this kind of device
many thanks
BM

great stuff!! thanks John!
i just dragged over my itunes and my iphoto folders
to my external HD and that seems to have done it,
will this be ok please?
Yes for data files. You can also burn them to CD or DVD, look in the iTune help for burning data files.
the software you mentioned is for things like backing
up the entire internal drive etc right?
That too is correct, you such need software to copy system files.
I like to have a mirror backup of my internal drive. If something happens to my iMac (a work computer) I can be up an running pretty quick. A few years ago I watched the big Cedar Fire here in San Diego race towards my neighborhood. I loaded up my truck with my important documents and my CPU as well as clothes and such in case I had to leave. Thank God they stopped the fire at the edge of the development, but after that I went and bought an external drive that I could quickly grab while evacuating.
I also back up and sync some things to my iDisk.
20 iMac iSight G5, G4 and G3 iBooks, G4 MDD, 4th Gen iPod Mac OS X (10.4.4)

LaCie external hardrive help

I have a firewire desktop Lacie external hardrive. I used it on my iBook with no problems. I then tried to plug it into my iMac g4, and it didn't show up as a drive. In the apple system profiler, it said nothing was plugged into my firewire port. BUT, in the disk utilities, it DID show up as LaCie. I read the manual and tried calling costumer service for lacie, but the number is not working. I do not think it is a problem with the drive (cause it worked on the ibook). I am quite frustrated. Can anyone offer any help?

It does indeed show up in disk utilities, but I do not know anything about disk utilities. Should I just click erase? I am a bit aprehensive to do so :/. If this aprehension is unjustified, then please let me know, I am willing to try anything that will not ruin this drive (it is now empty, so no problems there)
And yes, unfortunately I have checked the cables, and I have read EVERYTHING on the disk that was included, and no luck. I do not have a network, so I would not knwo how to go about chekcing your other possibility, but I doubt it would show up if it wont even recognize the disk on the system profiler on THIS computer. I guess what Im most perterbed by is that it does indeed show up in disk utility, but NO WHERE else. If it didn';t how up anywhere, I know that for some reason the computer just can't recognize the drive, but it obviously does know that its connected. And it can't be the fire wire or the port, because I've used the port and wire fro soemthing else (connecting the ibook to the imac) and it worked perfectly. Boy, how frusterating.

I want to use the Thunderbolt connection for an external hard drive

I want to use the Thunderbolt connection for an external hard drive - so what port would I use on the MacBook Pro 13" for the display monitor. Thank you!

This is not the forum for MacBook Pro owners.
You just need to reformat the drive in Disk Utility and erase the drive and have Mac HFS.
If you did need to use NTFS then you would not want -3G but Paragon NTFS for OS X x. 10.0
Or buy something that isn't pre-formatted to Windows NT file system.
First though make sure you have backups of your system. TimeMachine being used now?
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-TimeMachine-drive.html
http://www.apple.com/support/timemachine/
Maybe cleanout some files you don't need.
Install a larger notebook hard drive even.
http://www.macsales.com/firewire has a lot of choice in Mac compatible drives and enclosures so you don't need to worry about Fantom not working at some point.
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/mac_os_x_v10.6_snow_leopard

I have an external hardrive for MAC, I needed to save something from my work computer so I can pass it on to my MAC, it requiered me to re-format my external HD and now when I connected to my MAC I only have "read only rights". How do I fix it?

I have an external hardrive for MAC, I needed to save something from my work computer so I can pass it on to my MAC, it requiered me to re-format my external HD and now when I connected to my MAC I only have "read only rights". How do I fix it? I run my Itnues from this external and now my library is gone. Luckily I have it saved somewhere else, which is not a problem, but I won't be able to write to this HD for right now. I can't see an option to give those permission back.

cptjuanjvarona wrote:
I have an external hardrive for MAC, I needed to save something from my work computer so I can pass it on to my MAC, it requiered me to re-format my external HD and now when I connected to my MAC I only have "read only rights". How do I fix it?...
Unless what you have to transfer is enormous, skip the external HD altogether and use a USB flash drive; you can get them with capacities to 128GB. Format the flash drive as FAT32 or ExFAT as LowLuster suggests so it can be read and written to on both PC's and your Mac.

Scratch Disc Questions using Firewire External Drive & Imac

Hello. I've read through the existing questions regarding scratch disc and Photoshop, yet can't seem to find an answer to my questions. I would greatly appreciate any tips/advice. Here is my setup and situation:
I am running an iMac with a 2.16 intel core 2 duo processor, 3 GB memory, and running OS X version 10.6.4. I am currently using versions cs3 and cs4 of Photoshop, but plan to upgrade to cs5 soon.
The problem I am having is when running Photoshop, my computer becomes very slow. After reading about possible reasons, I came across a couple of sources (including Adobe themeselves) mentioning that the scratch disc should be a designated drive seperate from the drive containing the operating system. Since I am using an iMac that only allows for one internal drive, my only apparent option seems to be an external drive.
Many people say don't use an external drive, but if you are going to; use an eSATA or firewire. The imac does have firewire 800 capabilities. Should I consider this?
Now I'm wondering if it's a bad idea to purchase a macbook for my next computer (what I wanted to do) because it will also only have one drive, not allowing for a seperate drive for the scratch disc. Any thoughts? I've read around the net but haven't found any definitive answers.

Designer,
Photoshop benefits greatly from having a scratch disk on a separate physical drive, not on the boot disk or on another partition of the boot disk. It's almost not worth connecting via Firewire 400 because the transfer limitations don't allow much performance improvement. But using a Firewire 800 connection gives excellent performance.
Running Photoshop on a one-drive machine is a little frustrating due to the performance hit without the separate scratch drive.
Rich

What is FireWire and what FireWire adapter do I need to use FireWire 800 for my portable external hard drive ?

Hi guys, I'm new to Mac. I have a MacBook Pro 13" (late 2011) with Lion OS and Parallels 7 (Windows 7). My understanding is that there is FireWire connection / extension built in to the MacBook Pro already. I also have a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex portable external hard drive 750GB USB2.0 and 3.0 (that can be used for PC and Mac). It states that the portable external harddrive is FireWire 800 compatible. The questions are (1) how does FireWire works ? (2) how do I use or activate FireWire 800 ? (3) is there any setup / setting changes I need to on my MacBook Pro ? (4) what FireWire adapter do I need to purchase to connect my portable external harddrive to my MacBook Pro ? Is it expensive ?
I read a few articles online but they are too technical for me. They mentioned something about FireWire adapter with 6 pins or 9 pins. Not sure what that means. I'm totally confused. So any help, advise or guidance will be much appreciated. In Layman's term would be better. Thanks.
How about Thunderbolt ? Is it compatible with the above external portable hard drive mentioned ? Do I need a Thunderbolt adapter for it ? How do I activate or use Thunderbolt ?

Thanks, Clinton and Alberto.
The below link is the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex portable external hard drive (product code STAA750302) that I have. It states that it features USB 2.0 or 3.0 plug–and–play connectivity and easily upgradeable to USB 3.0, FireWire 800 or eSATA. It only comes with a 18-inch USB 3.0 / 2.0 backward compatible cable.
http://www.seagate.com/au/en/external-hard-drives/portable-hard-drives/standard/ goflex/
Based on the above, my understanding is that I need to buy a FireWire 800 adapter to connect to the portable external hard drive so that I can use FireWire 800 with my MacBook Pro. Is this correct ? Do I need to get a separate cable as well or can I just use the 18-inch USB 3.0 / 2.0 backward compatible cable that was provided in the box ? If so, what sort of FireWire 800 cable do I need to get ? 9 pin to 9 pin ? 6 pin to 9 pin ? Or 4 pin to 9 pin ?
https://www.lindy.com.au/online/arrshop.exe?anonymous=true&cat=b1

1 library, 1 external hardrive, 2 macs using it.

Hello out there, Ive got my entire itunes library on my external 500gb hardrive. I would like to use both my imac g5 power pc and my macbook pro to use and share this one external hardrive so that I don't have to duplicate anything. my g5 is running itunes 7 and my macbook pro is running itunes 8. I don't wanna upgrade to either if I don't have to.

I would prefer to use it one at a time on which ever computer I am running. I constantly connect and reconnect it to either computer. Still, to answer my question, A) Do I still have to run the same Itunes version? and B) How do I get the song list to read on the second mac. Simply going to preferences/advanced and setting the itunes music folder location isn't working.

HT1178 Time Capsule used as External Hardrive Backup

If I want to use a Time Capsule as an external hardrive backup for my MacBook Pro, how do I do it?
What cords do I need and can I get it to back up wirelessly? I don't want my own wireless from it,
because we already have it in the house - I just want my own storage unit and I have one, but no
cords to go with it. Need to get cords - which ones?

This is out of my area of expertise, but I believe you can set the Time Capsule up so it doesn't generate a network, but is on the existing network.
Then you can back up to it wirelessly.
You should still do the first backup via an Ethernet cable if at all possible, as it will be 2-3 times faster than WIFI, but then backups can be done without having to connect the cable.

Using external hardrive to backup

My external hardrive is set up to automatically backup when I plug it in. I have used it twice, both times
when its arrow at the top of my desktop quit spinning I dropped its icon into the trash and then removed the external drive from my laptop. This time it must have finished quite rapidly. I went in to Time Machine to see if I could tell for sure. I pressed a blue 'up' arrow and its icon on my desktop disappeared. I can not find the icon anywhere and do not want to take any chances of unplugging it from my laptop incorrectly. In Time Machine it says that the latest backup failed and Next Backup will take place 'when Disk is connected'. It also says that the latest backup was delayed.
CAN I REMOVE this external drive without dropping it into the trash. Where did its icon go? I just can't afford to take any chances.

I agree that you should be able to just pull out the hard drive if you don't hear any activity from it writing or see a light on the casing blinking. Make sure the hard drive is formated Mac OS Extended (Journaled) to work properly with Time Machine.

Presenter 8 crashes after connecting external Firewire cam

Good day,
We often organize workshops and conferences which I sometimes record with an external camera for later reference by our own staff or to make them available to clients who couldn't attend the presentations.
For a long time I was looking for a tool to synchronise PowerPoint slides with spoken recorded comment (audio/video), since I don't believe in just making slides available to people who couldn't attend the presentation, without the spoken comments of the speaker.
I also believe in slides with as less text as possible, but more with images, schemes and animations to support the speaker's message. But in such a case, the spoken comment is an essential part of the presentation to get the message, since the slides as-such alone don't tell enough.
I installed the trial version of Adobe Presenter 8 to test its suitability for our company marketing and presentation needs.
Adobe Presenter 8 seems to work perfect to synchronise Powerpoint slides and screen actions, together with video recorded by an external webcam, connected via USB to my notebook or via the internal webcam in my notebook.
However, I also want to record presentations, presented in our auditorium and meeting rooms and I want to synchronise in realtime (= during the actual presentation) the Powerpoint slides together with the video/audio from the speaker. The realtime option avoids the work of recording the speaker on tape or in an MPG or FLV during the actual presentation, uploading the A/V file to my PC and doing the PowerPoint/audio/video synchronisation work afterwards by going through the whole presentation again.
To record the video I therefore use an external semi-pro videocamera (JVC DV-500), since this gives me better possibilities to frame the right image, zoom in/out, better lens, etc ... in comparison with an ordinary webcam. The JVC DV-500 can be connected to a computer via a Firewire I/F.
This always worked perfect when we recorded and streamed video/audio using Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder 3.2. Adobe Flash Encoder recognizes the via FireWire connected external cam without a problem.
But, when using Adobe Presenter 8 within PowerPoint 2010 to start recording a presentation, and when I switch on the power switch on the external JVC-cam, Adobe Presenter 8 crashes, showing an error "Application encountered an internal error ... report to product support forums, etc ..." and "Adobe-Pr-VC.exe doesn't work anymore", and creating some error log and dump-files on my notebook.
After switching off the external cam and keeping it switched off, and manually deleting in Task Manager still running instances of Presenter-software (Adobe_Pr_VC.exe), and restarting PowerPoint, everything works well again with the USB or internal webcam.
Already deleted Presenter from my notebook, cleaned up registry with CCleaner, reinstalled Presenter, but error keeps on coming back.
Someone any ideas what causes this error?
Software conflict, driver conflict, Adobe Presenter incompatible with external A/V devices, no support of FireWire I/F, ... ?
Configuration:
Fujitsu notebook LifeBook T5010
Windows 7 Pro SP1 32-bit (Dutch version)
Microsoft Office 2010 Pro Plus (Dutch version)
Creative webcam connected via USB
External JVC DV-500 videocamera connected via build-in Firewire I/F
Firewire driver was installed by Windows automatically when connecting the cam (msdv.sys 6.1.7600.16385)
The only other real-time encoding software installed is Adobe Flash Media Live encoder 3.2.
Some other usual Adobe stuff (flash player, shockwave player, AIR, reader X, )
The possibility of connecting an external cam to record the speaker and synchronise the PowerPoint and/or screen actions in realtime, would greatly enhance our work.
Thanks,
Patrick ROTEN
Marketing dept.
CIPAL DV (Belgium)

Hi,
started Presenter's Video Creator in troubleshoot mode with external Firewire connected cam switched off.
1. Video Creator started in troubleshoot mode (got the 'troubleshoot' message)
2. default active cam was the USB webcam (HD screen, SD cam)
3. started recording
4. everything worked normal
5. stopped recording
Result looked fine. Got the normal troubleshoot message, asking to send log files. Did not do this, since there was no error at this time.
Then repeated the process with exteral FireWire cam.
1. Video Creator started in troubleshoot mode
2. default active cam was the USB webcam (HD screen, SD cam)
3. powered on external JVC camera connected to the notebook via FireWire
4. Video Creator crashed after windows detected (beep sound) an active appliance on the FireWire port.
Could not even stop recording with Video Creator in a normal way to go to the "send error log to Adobe" procedure.
Instead got a box with the message: "Applications encountered an internal error. If the problem persists, please report on product support forums or contact the support team."
Had to shut down Adobe_Pr_VC.exe manually in Task Manager.
Tried the same procedure with another FireWire appliance, a DV video recorder with a tape of a previously recorded conference session.
Same error, as soon as I powered on the videorecorder, and Windows detected (beep sound) an active appliance on the FireWire port, Video Creator crashed with the same error message as above.
I can't go through the whole workflow to send the error logs to Adobe, since Video Creator crashes from the moment the power of a FireWire appliance is switched on.
No possibility to stop recording in a normal way (SHIFT-END or clicking the icon in system tray).
Had to manually shut down Adobe_Pr_VC.exe in Task Manager again.
Tried again with Adobe Flash Media Live Encorder 3.2 to see how this application reacts, to be sure there is nothing wrong with my notebook or the Windows O/S.
1. started Flash Media Encoder with external FireWire cam switched off
2. saw 2 active devices : build in Sirius webcam and external USB Creative webcam
3. saw image of my webcam in the encoder monitor windows
4. switched on power on external JVC camera, connected via FireWire
5. Flash Media Encoder immediatelly recognized "Microsoft DV Camera and VCR". Selected this and image of external cam was shown in the encoder monitor windows.
6. Could stream FireWire cam image to an external streaming service without a problem.
Conclusion: a FireWire connected cam does work with other Adobe software. Must be something wrong in the Video Creator software.
Sorry I can't send you the log files, since app in both normal and troubleshoot mode crashes prematurely.
Hope my explanation helps you a bit to find a solution.
Regards,
Patrick

Using Firewire to connect external hardrive

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