Definitely an issue with the FW ports
Regarding the external drives issue. I think I have a similar issue. I have 3 external drives that I use on a regular basis (1 x FireWire400 with power brick, 1 x FireWire800 with power brick and 1 FireWire400 portable drive - powered by the FW port itself).
Now, the two drives that are self-powered seem to be working OK. They worked 100% with my PowerBook G4 (1.25GHz FW800 model) I just migrated from. The portable drive worked 100% with my PowerBook. But, when I hook the portable drive up to my new MacBook Pro, I get a flashing red-green-red-green light on the drive activity LED. I'm assuming that means "something is wrong".
Sometimes, when I connect the portable drive, it will work for a few minutes. But, if I try to open something on the drive or copy a file from it, it just hangs the Finder indefinitely until I unplug it (and get the nasty "you unplugged a device before OS X was finished with it!" message). Now the drive is dead to OS X -- it will not mount on the MBP or the PowerBook.
The drive inside the portable is a Seagate, and I've had no problems with it at all. Praying that my work files were not lost due to the drive going bad...I thought I'd try hooking the portable drive back up to my PowerBook. No joy. It's almost like the MBP screwed up the partition tables or something on the drive. I've checked the disk with the Seagate SeaTools, and it has turned up no indication that the disk is bad in nearly 48 hours of testing. That, to me, says there is definitely a compatibility and/or power issue with the FireWire ports on the new MBP C2D. I've tried using the FW400 port and FW800 port (with an adapter) to power and run the portable drive. No joy. I tried recovering the disk using Disk Rescue II. No joy.
I'd be really curious to see if others are having the same issue. My MBP is the 2.16GHz C2D model (stock, not BTO), and the external portable drive is a Seagate 5400.2 Momentus 100GB in a SmartDrive-branded combo USB2.0/IEEE1394 enclosure.
Regarding the external drives issue. I think I have a similar issue. I have 3 external drives that I use on a regular basis (1 x FireWire400 with power brick, 1 x FireWire800 with power brick and 1 FireWire400 portable drive - powered by the FW port itself).
Now, the two drives that are self-powered seem to be working OK. They worked 100% with my PowerBook G4 (1.25GHz FW800 model) I just migrated from. The portable drive worked 100% with my PowerBook. But, when I hook the portable drive up to my new MacBook Pro, I get a flashing red-green-red-green light on the drive activity LED. I'm assuming that means "something is wrong".
Sometimes, when I connect the portable drive, it will work for a few minutes. But, if I try to open something on the drive or copy a file from it, it just hangs the Finder indefinitely until I unplug it (and get the nasty "you unplugged a device before OS X was finished with it!" message). Now the drive is dead to OS X -- it will not mount on the MBP or the PowerBook.The drive inside the portable is a Seagate, and I've had no problems with it at all. Praying that my work files were not lost due to the drive going bad...I thought I'd try hooking the portable drive back up to my PowerBook. No joy. It's almost like the MBP screwed up the partition tables or something on the drive. I've checked the disk with the Seagate SeaTools, and it has turned up no indication that the disk is bad in nearly 48 hours of testing. That, to me, says there is definitely a compatibility and/or power issue with the FireWire ports on the new MBP C2D. I've tried using the FW400 port and FW800 port (with an adapter) to power and run the portable drive. No joy. I tried recovering the disk using Disk Rescue II. No joy.
I'd be really curious to see if others are having the same issue. My MBP is the 2.16GHz C2D model (stock, not BTO), and the external portable drive is a Seagate 5400.2 Momentus 100GB in a SmartDrive-branded combo USB2.0/IEEE1394 enclosure.