Firewire 400 to 800 cable not working

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Firewire 400 to 800 cable not working

Hi

I have just bought a third party Firewire 400 to 800 cable to connect from my Lacie drive's 800 port to the 400 port on my iBook. When I do this, the drive does not mount at all.

It's a 9 pin to 6 pin cable.

Does anyone know why this might not be working?

(Apologies to Forum readers who have already read this post under Mac Pro topics. My mistake.)

best

Aldo

iBook G4 1.42Ghz PowerPC, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Jul 9, 2007 4:21 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 9, 2007 4:48 AM in response to Aldo Palumbo

Does the Lacie drive have a 400 port?

It sounds like the 800 port is not backward-compatible to 400.

What is the model number of the Lacie drive?

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Answer 2

Aldo Palumbo Author

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Jul 10, 2007 2:47 PM in response to Ronda Wilson

Thanks Ronda. Strangely, I can't find a model on the casing, but Disk Utility tells me it's a WDC WD16 00BB-00DWA0 Media! I'm not sure if that's helpful or ridiculous but there you are.

It sold as a 150GB Lacie drive. I bought it a couple of years back. It's got two 800s, one 400 and one USB. I'd like to daisy chain it to a 400 only drive, but it won't work, so I'm testing the connection directly to my iBook. Same problem.

Any further thoughts appreciated.

best

Aldo

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Answer 3

Jul 10, 2007 3:18 PM in response to Aldo Palumbo

Inquiring minds want to know:

Is the external drive formatted Mac OS Extended?

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Answer 4

Jul 10, 2007 4:25 PM in response to Ronda Wilson

Dave Sawyer says:

His case may be defective or he may have a bad adapter cable.
Not at all sure that the daisychain he wants to set up will work, though, even if he can get the FW800 port to connect to the FW400 on his Mac.

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Answer 5

Aldo Palumbo Author

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25 points

Jul 11, 2007 1:09 AM in response to Ronda Wilson

Thanks again.

It's Mac OS Extended.

What does 'case' refer to: the drive or the cable?

best

Aldo

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Answer 6

Jul 11, 2007 2:17 AM in response to Aldo Palumbo

"Case" refers to the hard drive enclosure.

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Answer 7

Jul 11, 2007 2:33 AM in response to Aldo Palumbo

If it's any help, connecting FW800 to FW400 with a suitable cable sometimes works for me, and sometimes not. It seems to depend upon the items being connected.

I can connect a FW800 (..or should that be "an" FW800..?) Formac 500 drive to a 12" PowerBook with an 800-400 cable, and it works, but backs up half as fast as using the same drive and a 17" PowerBook, which has an FW800 socket.

However, I can't connect to any Mac, or daisychain through any drive, any video camcorder which I've tried, using FW800 somewhere in the link.

So I guess that some devices are happy to connect with FW800, using an 800-to-400 cable, and some are not. The Wikipedia entry for FireWire doesn't mention any such incompatibilities.

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Answer 8

Aldo Palumbo Author

Level 1

25 points

Jul 12, 2007 12:42 AM in response to David Babsky

Many thanks for all these replies. It seems I've been unlucky. At least I am now better informed.

best

Aldo

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