1 Firewire Drive 2 DIFFERENT Computers?

[Sogni]

I have removed one of my Windows PC's hard drives and stuck it in and Firewire box attached to my Mac...

I'd like to figure out if I can attach the same Firewire box to both the Mac (OS X) and Windows (2000 Pro) (aside from needing to buy a Firewire card for the PC).

Yeah I know I can do that via the Network but I'd like the option to go direct incase I lose a NIC card (again) or Hub.

The Firewire box does have 3 Firewire ports...

Anyone try this? Both computers at the same time? Does it work? Do any of the computers freak out?

Thanks.

 

[Gwailo]

Unless you have a magic box, you can't connect the same device to two computers at the same time (to the best of my knowledge).

Most drives have a daisy-chain pass-through, or in your case, it probably has a built-in IEEE 1394 hub.

My advice is to connect the drive to your Mac and share it over the network. If you lose your NIC, accessing the drive will be the least of your problems

 

[hunt045]

I have hooked up the FW ports on my Sony Spress CRX 1600XL external CDRW drive to both my G4 tower and my no name PC tower with a PCI FW card. I have found that once one of the computers gains control of the IEEE 1394 logic, it generally keeps it until you physically unplug it. There seems to be no adverse interaction between the two.

I had a shut down problem with the PC at first as it seems the driver would not stop the hand shaking between the drive and the interface card on shut down, and a warning message would pop up to that effect. A recent M$ driver update corrected the problem.

 

[adambyte]

Originally posted by hunt045
I have found that once one of the computers gains control of the IEEE 1394 logic, it generally keeps it until you physically unplug it. There seems to be no adverse interaction between the two.

You can do that? Holy crap! Every documentation I've ever read says "Do NOT connect this device to two computers at the same time." huh. go fig.