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MBP 2.26 Firewire Issue

M

MrFrump

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 16, 2008
27
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I tried searching but came up empty so I'm hoping someone out there can help.

I'm trying to get data off of an old Firewire 400 hard drive and put it on my new MBP. I bought a cable from monoprice which has FW 400 on one end and FW 800 on the other. However, when I try to plug the firewire 800 end in my MBP with the FW 400 end already plugged in to the external my computer immediately shuts off, no warning nothing, pretty scary. This happens even when the external is turned off which I think is especially weird. The only way I have had this work is if I turn the external on, connect everything with my computer off, then when I reboot my laptop the drive loads fine.

Anyone have any ideas? I would like to keep using my old external as a back-up but it will be a pain if I have to keep shutting down and re-starting. I'm also worried that something is wrong with my firewire. Thanks in advance for your help.
 
It could very well be a simple connector on your mono cable. I have no experience but I say find yourself a nice friend with an fw800 drive and try it without the fw400 on one end and the fw800 on the other. If the strait 800 works fine then go pick up a flat cable via LaCie (it is color coded orange). I know 12 bones is expensive when it comes to cables but they are tangle free and I have never had a problem with the one I use (external 400 raid + podcasting setup).
 
Thanks for the reply. What's strange is I tried two different FW 400/800 cables and both did the same thing so I don't suspect it's the monoprice cable.
 
Your 400 to 800 cable, is it 4-pin to 9-pin or 6-pin to 9-pin, needs to be the later. Does the external have a separate power supply or is it FireWire bus powered? If it's bus powered it could be drawing too much power for some reason.
 
DewGuy1999 said:
Your 400 to 800 cable, is it 4-pin to 9-pin or 6-pin to 9-pin, needs to be the later. Does the external have a separate power supply or is it FireWire bus powered? If it's bus powered it could be drawing too much power for some reason.
Click to expand...

I just checked my order to be sure and its 9 pin/6 pin. My external does have a separate power source and this happens even before I turn it on. If it helps, I have the Macally PHR-100AC external enclosure (link). This also did not happen when I connected my old ibook using the FW400/800 cable so it seems that its something with the macally enclosure.
 
I said it before, but try a 9 pin to 9 pin or fw800 to fw800 cable on a friend's or compatriot's external. If you do not see this issue then you KNOW that it is the cable rather then your computer. You need to lop off certain options to get to your answer.
 
g3funk said:
I said it before, but try a 9 pin to 9 pin or fw800 to fw800 cable on a friend's or compatriot's external. If you do not see this issue then you KNOW that it is the cable rather then your computer. You need to lop off certain options to get to your answer.
Click to expand...

Umm, that's not going to work as his external is a 6-pin FireWire 400. If you meant for him to try it with a friends FireWire 800 external then that's a different story all together. It could potentially clear the FireWire port on his MacBook Pro, but the 400-to-800 cable and his external drive would still be suspect.
 
DewGuy1999 said:
Umm, that's not going to work as his external is a 6-pin FireWire 400. If you meant for him to try it with a friends FireWire 800 external then that's a different story all together. It could potentially clear the FireWire port on his MacBook Pro, but the 400-to-800 cable and his external drive would still be suspect.
Click to expand...

Yes. I will ask around today at school and see if anyone has a FW 800 external I can test out, but I will still have a problem in that I can't connect my old external which I was hoping to use as a second bootable backup. Since I have tried two different cables and this cable works fine when transferring data between the FW 400 on my old ibook and the FW 800 on the new MBP I really don't think its the cable. Something must be screwy with the Macally case but I can't understand what it could be since it works fine on my old ibook and will connect to my new MBP as long as I start the computer with it already plugged in instead of trying to plug it in when the computer is already on.
 
On the PC side...

I saw this happen on a laptop a while ago... it would cause the laptop to restart as soon as the external enclosure was plugged in. We switched out the external enclosure for a different one and it worked fine... we RMA'ed the external enclosure and the one they sent us worked fine.

so maybe it is just your external device. Ours also had its own power supply.
 
DewGuy1999 said:
MrFrump:

Which Macally external hard drive or enclosure is it?
Click to expand...

Macally PHR-100AC

It is a few years old but looks just like the one in the link.

Edited to add that it isn't causing my computer to restart. As soon as I plug in the FW 800 end it makes a click and the computer completely turns off in the blink of an eye. I can try to connect via USB when I get home since my cable was at school, but I suspect that will work fine.
 
RE: MBP 2.26 Firewire Issue

"Edited to add that it isn't causing my computer to restart. As soon as I plug in the FW 800 end it makes a click and the computer completely turns off in the blink of an eye. I can try to connect via USB when I get home since my cable was at school, but I suspect that will work fine."

As you test things out, keep in mind that the drive enclosure might be OK, and that the problem _might_ be caused by your connecting cable.

Have you tried a _different_ cable with the same drive to eliminate that possibility?

For the same reason, to test your own cable, you should try it with
1. another external drive on your mac, AND,
2. your cable, a _different_ drive, on a _different_ mac.

If it's an older enclosure, it just might be the enclosure. You could either:
1. buy a new enclosure
2. borrow a new(er) enclosure to temporarily mount the drive and get the data off of it.

- John
 
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