bigbookjoe

Q: Did Apple cut support for FireWire with El Capitan?

I just upgraded to El Capitan and it cannot see either of my firewire disks. One is a Firewire 800 with an older FW 400 daisy chained off the higher drive.

 

It was reading them before, but now cannot see them AT ALL. When the power was interrupted I got a Growl message that my FW disk "name" had been ejected inappropriately.

 

Disk First Aid does not see either FireWire, but System recognized the power had been cut.

 

<Edited by Host>

Posted on Oct 2, 2015 7:56 PM

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Q: Did Apple cut support for FireWire with El Capitan?

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  • by jayv.,

    jayv. jayv. Oct 2, 2015 7:57 PM in response to bigbookjoe
    Level 4 (1,290 points)
    Oct 2, 2015 7:57 PM in response to bigbookjoe

    FireWire 400 and 800 are still supported in El Capitan.

    Restart your Mac and connect the drives one at a time, see if they are recognized.

  • by leroydouglas,

    leroydouglas leroydouglas Oct 2, 2015 7:57 PM in response to bigbookjoe
    Level 7 (23,806 points)
    Notebooks
    Oct 2, 2015 7:57 PM in response to bigbookjoe

    Firewire is still supported.

  • by Neal Fox,

    Neal Fox Neal Fox Nov 16, 2015 12:59 PM in response to bigbookjoe
    Level 1 (116 points)
    iPhone
    Nov 16, 2015 12:59 PM in response to bigbookjoe

    I'm having the same problem. I'm on an old Mac Pro running el capitan. None of my firewire devices are working under FW. I have to plug them all into the usb 2 ports. That means 1. not enough ports and 2. much slower.

     

    Anybody find a solution?

     

    And I did try reconnecting them after restart one at a time.

  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad Nov 16, 2015 1:40 PM in response to Neal Fox
    Level 10 (141,368 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 16, 2015 1:40 PM in response to Neal Fox

    Reset the SMC according to this Apple document:  Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support

     

    OTsig.png

  • by benwiggy,

    benwiggy benwiggy Nov 16, 2015 1:43 PM in response to bigbookjoe
    Level 4 (1,430 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 16, 2015 1:43 PM in response to bigbookjoe

    I have FireWire disks and FireWire audio interfaces running without problem on El Capitan. Apple did not remove support for FW.

  • by Neal Fox,

    Neal Fox Neal Fox Nov 16, 2015 2:47 PM in response to Old Toad
    Level 1 (116 points)
    iPhone
    Nov 16, 2015 2:47 PM in response to Old Toad

    I reset the SMC but it didn't help.

  • by bigbookjoe,

    bigbookjoe bigbookjoe Nov 16, 2015 7:27 PM in response to Neal Fox
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 16, 2015 7:27 PM in response to Neal Fox

    I finally went to zero and a) reset PRAM, b) did a cold restart, and c) reseated the cables to and between my firewire drives.

     

    They then could be seen by El Capitan and I have been able to access the data.

     

    Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner.

  • by Johnro,

    Johnro Johnro Apr 19, 2016 1:34 PM in response to bigbookjoe
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 19, 2016 1:34 PM in response to bigbookjoe

    Several responses say Apple supports firewire, and Apple says El Capitan supports FW (but it doesn't say whether it supports both 400 & 800).  I had Garageband 6.0.5 receiving signal from a MOTU analog to digital interface.  When I (foolishly) upgraded to GB 10, I lost the signal.  Having dumped GB10, I still have a signal coming into the Macbook Pro, but nothing on the (reinstated) GB 6.0.5, or, for that matter Digital Performer (another digital audio workstation software).  I would say the problem is MOTU's driver, but I got a signal before using the same driver.  Apple has no idea what the problem is, so I'm going to roll back out of El Cap and hope.  Burden of the message:  If you don't have to change OS, don't.  Also, if you have any experience with DAW (garageband before GB10, ProTools, Logic Pro, Digital Performer), look closely at GB10 before downloading.  It makes life easy for people want to use loops, but it doesn't look like a classic DAW, so there will be a learning curve.

  • by Barney-15E,

    Barney-15E Barney-15E Apr 19, 2016 9:27 PM in response to Johnro
    Level 9 (50,458 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 19, 2016 9:27 PM in response to Johnro

    I've got 5 FW800 hard drives and a FW400 iSight camera daisy-chained, all working with El Capitan. I'm not sure if I still have a FW400 drive somewhere to test, but I will look around and try it out if I do have one.

  • by Johnro,

    Johnro Johnro Apr 20, 2016 8:28 AM in response to Barney-15E
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 20, 2016 8:28 AM in response to Barney-15E

    Thanks for the reply.  As I noted, it could be the driver that enables sound from my digital-audio converter.  Apple couldn't figure it out, so I have rolled back to Yosemite.