Late 2009 iMac - Firewire 800 not backwards compatible :(

Paul, I think they've spun you a bit of BS!

The 14 day period is a 'cooling off' period which is there for you to decide if you wish to keep the machine or not, for any reason. It is not the time you have to discover a fault. If it fails in the first 3 weeks then it's clearly not fit for the purpose it was intended, nor is it considered to be of merchantable quality. It is simply wrong to tell you that you have to have a repair. You are entitled to a refund or replacement. You have rights under the Sale of Goods Act. Have a look at this site.

Your Rights

Hey, im having a similar problem.
I had to buy a 400-800 adapter to change my video camerma 400 cable so that it will fit into my iMac "9,1" which i bought in the summer of 2009. The camera is reconized on my brothers laptob when i plug it into his firewire 400 port, but when i plug it into my computer through the 800 port "using the adapter" the device does not show up. I checked the system profiler and it says "Firewire bus. max speed 800mb/sec". When I plugged it into my brothers computer, it listed the name of my hd video camera.

either
1. my computer firewire port is busted..... I tried resseting the smc, pram nvram. did a hardware check. no hardware is broken.

or

2. the adapter is broken.. no way of checking.

3. Like paul said, you cannot go from 400 to an 800.

So im wondering if there any way to install some new hardware or do have to replace the mother board. i just dont want to be with out my mac for 2 weeks, and have all its memory wiped.


thanks

This is discussed in another thread related to camcorders; I think it's in the discussion group *Using your Intel-basaed iMac.*