PCMCIA Firewire/USB Combo Card -firewire problems w/OS9

C

carpethanger

Registered
Well, here goes!

Have a iOGear Pcmcia Firewire/Usb 2.0 Combo card (model GUF202) , with an external Lacie d2 Extreme 160gb Firewire/USB Hard Drive, on a Powerbook G3 Lombard 333mhz, 512k ram, OS9.2/OSX 10.2.8.

PROBLEM: Lombard will not recognize the Lacie d2 with Firewire in OS9. (Actually, it won't show the Firewire ports period even in "Devices and Volumes" under OS9's System Profiler. The card's firewire presently only works and shows in OSX). The drive mounts w/USB no problems using the iOGear card both in OS9 and OSX.

(Actually, other than with USB, the drive wouldn't mount w/Firewire in OSX either at first, until rebooted into OS9 and installed the Lacie Firewire Extensions on OS9. Though it STILL wouldn't show firewire in OS9, when rebooted to OSX, the Lacie drive then magically mounted via Firewire in OSX. Thankfully! But I still can't do firewire in OS9, which of course is where I need it!)

Have the following extensions installed in OS9:

firewire cardbus enabler 1.0.1

firewire enabler 2.8.4

firewire authoring support 1.1.2

firewire support 2.8.4

Lacie Firewire Support 6.5.4


The drive powers up as soon as connected to the card via firewire in OS9, (and it of course works fine w/Firewire now in OSX), so am assuming the card is functioning to capacity. It's just OS9 which doesn't want to recognize the iOGear "Firewire" ports. OS9 shows the iOGear USB ports no problem, just not the Firewire.

Have searched the net for days, including here at MacOSX and of course Apple, and have found nothing to assist. Your kind offerings shall be ever so greatly appreciated on all fronts.

Thanks!



PS: The iOGear GUF202 "supports Mac 8.6 to 9.x, Mac OSX or greater". Also there are no special iOGear drivers included for OS9. I have yet to get through to iOGear support for their ideas on the matter. Oh, and I'm NOT running in Classic for OS9, I'm booting fully into OS9 where the firewire won't show.
 
It could be an extension conflict that is not allowing Firewire to work in OS 9.

While booted in OS 9, go to Control Panels>Extension Manager. Disable Apple's Firewire Support. Restart the computer and give it a try.
 
Cheryl,

Thanks kindly for your response. Tried as you suggested but no luck. Also tried disabling couple of other Apple Firewire extensions and rebooting as well all with no success. OS9 (and Apple System Profiler) continues to refuse to recognize the Firewire port(s) on the iOGear card and will only show the card's USB ports.

The box says:

"*OS9 USB 1.1 Support Only. **Mac users must have OS X to take advantage of HiSpeed USB 2.0."

There being no mention of Firewire, I had of course assumed this to mean only USB 1 w/OS9 as it is common knowledge one must have OSX for USB 2.0. Am beginning to wonder now if they actually mean the card will not do Firewire at all in OS9. I shall not be the least bit pleased should such prove to be the case.

Will post my final results here regardless my success in the event might prove of possible assistance to others.

Cheers!

Barry
 
An update:

In the event it might prove of any interest or assistance to others along the way.

Spoke with the Senior Tech at tech support at IOGEAR. No solutions found nor offered. As is too often the case, he was more interested in coming up with excuses as to why it won't work on my specific Mac, than offering or seeking possible solutions.

He then tried to suggest the card wouldn't do firewire because the card bus on the Lombard is only 16bit, and the ioGear GUF202 card supposedly needs 32bit. I then pointed out that if such is the case, then why does the card's firewire work fine with OSX using that same 16bit cardbus on the same machine? There goes that excuse. (And if such were indeed the case, it should clearly state so on the box or documentation and I wouldn't have purchased the card in the first place. Simple!)

Am going to attempt to return the card to place of purchase, and shall seek other more "Mac-happy" possibilities. (Tho may be too late now, as purchased the card earlier in anticipation of the new Firewire drive which just arrived recently.)

Am not impressed with iOGear's offerings in this matter (or more specifically lack thereof), and despite their decent looking product line and warranty, will likely avoid any future ioGear peripherals unless I can first see it running perfectly in all necessary configurations before purchase. (Ha!, Yeah, like that'll happen!)

(Was actually considering an iOGear Firewire hard drive, but it at least clearly stated only OSX - thankfully - so went with the tried and true Lacie instead.)

I might suggest here should any be looking into iOgear equipment for use on the Mac platform, to not necessarily trust the Mac compatability offerings stated on the box and docs, and to first thoroughly test the product before purchase. My research on the net has shown numerous reports of quirkyness w/iogear peripherals on the Mac.

One final note. The GUF202 Firewire works fine with OSX. (HOWEVER, it would NOT do so until I first booted fully into OS9 (not Classic mode) and installed the Lacie OS9 Firewire extensions. Then, when I rebooted into OSX, the iOGear Firewire ports finally became functional, and the drive mounted properly.)

Should I only have needed the Firewire portion of the card to work with OSX and not OS9, none of this would have been an issue. The iOGear GUF202 Firewire port in OSX now works fine in all respects with the Lacie d2 160g HD using OSX 10.2.8 on the Lombard.

Also, USB ports on the GUF202 card work perfectly fine in both OSX (USB 2.0), and OS9 (USB 1.0). Just no Firewire in OS9. (Still sounds like a software/extension issue to me, but obviously what the heck do I know!)

My apologies for the extended ramble. Hope it helps someone along the way.

Cheers all!
 
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