| I had this same problem on a G4 Yikes! machine when I first got my iPod photo 60GB -- using the built-in FireWire ports yielded dismal write speeds (about 1MB/sec). The only cure I found was to install a PCI FireWire card and use the ports on the PCI card, and that's when I saw speedy FireWire transfer speeds.
DeltaMac said it straight when he said the FireWire implementation on those machines (the B&W G3s and Yikes! G4s) is an early implementation and possibly not fully compatible with the IEEE1394 specification. The only workaround I know of is to get a Mac-compatible FireWire PCI card and use that with the FireWire hard drives.
__________________ Power Macintosh G4/500MHz "Yikes!" 10.4.11 Server • 1024MB • 3 x 120GB + 320GB • DVR-111D • 2 x Radeon 7000 PCI • 2 x 17" CRT MacBook 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo - White 10.5.5 • 2048MB • 80GB • CD-RW/DVD-ROM iPod Photo 60GB • iPod nano 1GB • AT&T DSL 6Mb/768k http://www.jeffhoppe.com |