Using the firewire 800 port for my firewire 400 devices

I will be purchasing, at long last, a new mac mini to replace my faithful and well behaved G4 mac mini. I have a 20" cinema display and an external firewire 400 backup drive with the same form factor that sits below the mini. I would like to continue to use these peripherals as well as my video camera DV out. Ideally, it would be cool to have a FW800 hub that had both 800 and 400 places to plug my peripherals, but I don't see that available. Should I get a hub and adaptors for the fw400 components I want to add, or use the hard drive with an adaptor to the mini, then use the FWports on the drive for the monitor, and whatever else I want, thereby using the drive as a hub...
Any advice to this ignorant question would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Paul

Since Firewire 400 devices still operate at Firewire 400 speeds regardless of whether or not they are connected by adapter to Firewire 800 ports, the best thing to do is just get a Firewire 800 to 400 adapter, and attach it to a Firewire 400 hub known to be able to do all the functions you desire.
Note, migrating to Intel Macs from PowerPC Macs is not as easy as the Migration Assistant, as this user tip explains:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435350&tstart=0

Similar Messages

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

How do I capture tape-based media to my external hard drive? There is only one firewire 800 port on the back of my I mac. The manual says to import tape footage directly into fcpx, but then I lose my external hard drive. thanks for your help.

In FCP X How do I capture tape-based media (hdv clips)- which I want to import-to my external hard drive? There is only one firewire 800 port on the back of my I mac. The FCPX manual says to import tape footage directly into final cut, which works, but then I lose my external hard drive Do I have to import it into an event, then copy it over to an external hard drive? On Larry Jordan's tutorial, he has 3 external hard drives that show up on his monitor WHILE he imports his tape based media. How is that done? I can only get either the camera to appear OR my external hard drive. thanks for your help.

Thanks for your response, but that doesn't solve the problem. Yes, the LaCie hard drive has 2 firewire ports-
I have always done what you suggest (works fine in FCP7), but in FCPX when I do that the camcorder icon
does not appear. It only shows up when I DIRECTLY import the footage via firewire. ????

Can i use Iomega 1TB MiniMax Hard Drive FireWire 800/USB for ipad 2 to access videos without using mac or pc ?

can i use Iomega 1TB MiniMax Hard Drive FireWire 800/USB for ipad 2 to access videos without using mac or pc ?

No, you can't connect an external drive to the iPad - the iPad doesn't have a USB or firewire port and the camera connection kit only supports the transfer of photos and videos into the Photos app. There are some wifi-enabled drives that can be used to stream content to the iPad e.g. Seagate GoFlex Satellite

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.

Is there a way to test the Firewire 800 port?

My firewire 800 port seems to no longer work on my Imac. Before bringing the machine to repair, I was wondering if there is any way to test the port, or to reset it. I remember I had a similar issue a few years ago and I could make it work again.
Thank you for your help!

Hi Felix
1. Try resetting the FireWire bus as described in the +What to do if your computer won't recognize a FireWire or USB device+ article below:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317?viewlocale=en_US
2. Connect a FireWire device and open your *System Profiler,* then in the Hardware section select FireWire to see if the device is shown on the bus.
Dennis

Hi. I have a Macbook Pro Model 5,5 with one 800 firewire port. I need to create two firewire 800 ports but only have an SD card slot (this is for video interface with 2 cameras). Is this possible or do I have to have an express card slot in order to do

Hi. I have a Macbook Pro Model 5,5 with one 800 firewire port. I need to create two firewire 800 ports but only have an SD card slot (this is for video interface with 2 cameras). Is this possible or do I have to have an express card slot in order to do this?

Hi Jessica,
No, the SD slot will not work, you need an ExpressCard/34 slot.
I do not know if it works with cameras, but with two or more HDs, if the first one has two FW ports, you can "daisy chain" one or more additional HDs from it.

Can i use my firewire 800 port with a usb adapter?

Can i use an adapter in the firewire 800 port to convert it to usb?

Yes, Their are some on the market, but I don't know how well they work.

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.

MacBook Pro 13'' FireWire 800 Port

Hey all
I'm quite worried about the FW 800 port in my macbook pro 13''. Any time i connect my camcorder to it, it doesn't show up in iMovie nor final cut pro. However in system profiler Firewire is showing up but all that is displayed is the speed of the port "800MB/s". The FW 800 cable which is a 9-4 pin connector I purchased off ebay does feel quite odd though it feels really stiff and also has various lumps inside the outer skin. I have ran the apple hardware test which the machine past even on the longer running test.
I then also tried Verbose mode at bootup and mentioned the firewire status as being okay, does it sound just like the cable or something more serious. is there any other software type tests I can run to check the port?
tomorrow however I am going to be testing the cable on my mates macs using his FW 800 port to find out. Should i be worried about the FW port?
regards R Nicholson

Hi MU&P,
Cables are a very common cause of connection problems under firewire , and yours certainly sounds like it may have problems, so I'd rank that as the most likely issue.
It is not clear from your comments, though, whether you have used this camera with a Mac successfully before.
If it is not a camera that you are familiar with (I say this in part because of the time of the year!) it would pay to check and double check the processes involved in setting up the connection. You have the camera set to play, rather than record or in the confusing named "PC" computer connection mode which appears on some Panasonic cameras and is only actually used for transferring still photos stored on the cameras photo SD card?
Cheers
Rod

I have bad audio from firewire 800 port

crackling, hissing audio

Hello afrmedia,
Thank you for the details of the issue you are experiencing with your FireWire 800 port. I found an article with steps you can take to troubleshoot an issue like this.
I recommend following the steps in the section titled "Top troubleshooting tips" in the following article:
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1151
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Adding Firewire 800 ports

Hi there
Anyone know how I add / install Firewire 800 ports to my mac pro and can recommend the appropriate card to get.
I would like to generate 4 more ports for external hard drives.
If anyone has a video or photo link where I can see how to install that would be fab.
I have trawled for too many hours now trying to find this info-apologies in advance if it's right under my nose in discussions.
Cheers

First of all... do we speak about °Celsius or °Fahrenheit...?
My northbridge is at 167° F (75° C)... or should I say "was"... of course I installed smcFanControl and boost the minimum fan speed up by +250rpm the heat went down to 127° F (53° C)
Looks like we have pretty same understanding of building up our work space
I have two cable slots installed under my Desktop - one for the power cords and one for the data cords. In fact that my desktop is very large an I have 4 MACs, an A2+ Printer, all external devices, an APC and all the network stuff under it in a line. The desktop is mounted to a wall and the space between the wall and the devices are about 1/2m. At the end of the line I use a large fan which pick up the hot air and transport it into the room... to the inlet of the AC... the outlet of it is blowing right at the front of all devices. It works great.... just like a heat pipe... I checked that with a smoke generator.

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

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.

Using the firewire 800 port for my firewire 400 devices

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for