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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Firewire Woes

cradloff - Jun 28, 2005 - 4:12 pm

Hello...

My company currently has two G4's, running OS 10.3.9. We also have two Bytecc external hard drives which we use to archive/backup stuff. Unfortunately, during one of the minor 10.3 upgrades both machines lost FireWire capabilities. (The drives work on our old G3's, so we know the drives still work.)

My question is simple. If we pony up the change to upgrade to 10.4, will our FireWire work again?


Thank you!

baldprof - Jun 28, 2005 - 6:14 pm

Sometimes what happens is that if the firewire devices are connected during an OS upgrade, the firewire can get messed up. The firmware may have gotten damaged. This has happened before with certain firwire chipsets. Those drives are fine after the upgrade only if they weren't connected during the upgrade process.

There may be some software which came with the drives that will restore the firmware. In any case, you would probably need a firmware upgrade to make the drives compatible with Tiger. I would wait for any additional upgrades until after 10.4.2 is available. Aslo contact the vendor/manufacturere about a firmware upgrade.

For now, though, can these computers not recognize any firewire devices? If so, there are two things to try. One is download and install the 10.3.9 combo updater. This differs from the upgrades that come through software update. Sometimes these combo updates produce better results. If that fails to restore firewire capability, then you can try a reset of the firewire bus. You would need to power down the Macs, and unplug the AC power cord. Let them set for 15 minutes, reconnect the power, then restart the Mac. someitmes that will bring back firewire capability.

cradloff - Jun 29, 2005 - 10:05 am

Hmmm... Interesting! I shall give it a shot!

Thank you very much!