Firewire CardBus Card on PBG3 Wallstreet

[Factor41]

I have a PowerBook G3/300 Wallstreet2 running 10.2 which I'm steadily upgrading and I've aquired an IBM IEEE1394 (Firewire) CardBus PC Card on the cheap. Anyone got any idea how to make the thing work?

Also, when it does work can it power FW devices through the fw cable or would I need the power supply to use, say, a LaCie Pocket Drive?

I read on xlr8yourmac.com that someone was using the drivers from a fwdepot card on their generic fw card, but that doesn't seem to work. Unless I'm using the wrong one. Any help much appreciated.

Dave

 

[Snowball]

I have the exact same laptop as you, and in my experience, OS X (since at least 10.1.5) recognizes firewire PC cards as soon as you plug them in - the drivers are written by apple.
Just pop in the card, and menu extra for PC cards will appear in the upper right. Click on the menu and the vendor name will appear underneath. (This is a much better solution to letting the user know that a PC card is plugged in than the OS 9 way where a PC card would mount on the Desktop as if it were removable media (which I guess it was in a sense)).

Unfortunately, all of the FireWire PC cards I've seen are not powered. However, if there are two ports on the card, sometimes (not with the Orange Micro series though) you can use an iPod to fix that . Just plug the firewire cable from the iPod into the power adapter, plug the other end into one firewire port on the card, and use the 2nd firewire port for your bus-powered device.
Be forewarned though: I have this feeling that OS X screws up the NewerTech FireWire2Go card, because I used that card very frequently problem-free in OS 9, but once I plugged it under OS X on my WallStreet it was permanently damaged - now it won't mount under either OS 9 or OS X. Maybe coincidence, maybe not...(maybe OS X sent overloaded some circuitry somewhere...)

 

[callieX]

I have the 266 mHz model and a firewire to go card. I have been very pleased with how the card worked in 10.1.5 and well in 10.2. The drivers are part of the OS. I have 512 M of RAM in it and a 20 Gig hard drive. Be forewarned Jaguar will not install with 512 of RAM. It is an installer problem. I took 256 out and installed Jaguar and then put the memory back in. Jaguar recognizes it but the installer did not. It got to 20 min go and the dialog install box faded to the background color.

Calliex

 

[Factor41]

Oh yeah, so it does, pops up right there! Sure that never happened last time, tho there was a lot of dust in there! Guess i was having trouble before cos I was trying it with an unpowered PocketDrive. Nice one guys, fanx.

Am already running Jaguar too, thanx. Don't have any memory probs yet, except that I ordered 256 PC100 and they sent me 128 PC133 instead! Still waiting on a replacement...

Cheers for your help.