Do you get this message without any firewire devices attached?
If you boot off the OS X Installation DVD and run system profiler do you get the same message (With or without devices attached?)
If removing firewire devices lets you see basic information regarding the bus, then you might have a bad cable, or the device is damaged. If you still get the message without devices your firewire port might have gotten damaged (This happened to me on a PowerMac G5 when I plugged a cable in backwards and it fried the bus.)
If booting off the DVD corrects the issue, then there is a corrupt system pref.
Anyone find a resolution to this issue. Trying to connect my video camera - thought it might be the cable but the issue seems too pervasive for it just to be my cable.
I have this problem too. My Lacie BluRay recorder runs fine with Firewire on my MacBook but I get the dreaded "Unable to Detect Firewire devices" message when I connect to the new 27" Imac. So far I have tried the following without success:
1) Different FW 6 to 9 cables to the BR
2) Linking in T-Mode to the MacBook
3) Resetting the PRAM
4) Talking to people at the local Apple store
5) Talking to people at the local independent Apple retailer
They all say "It should work. Why don't you bring your Imac in and we will take a look at it." I don't fancy lugging my 27" Imac to the store and waiting three days with the chance that they don't know how to fix it.
I know apple moderators cruise through the forums. Can one of you guys please weigh in on this.
I've been using SnowLep since it was released. Had a lock-up this morning and after a hard reset, no firewire devices are showing up and I got the same warning everyone else is getting.
Start-up took about 7min.
I'm a photographer with over 35k images on my external drives... yes they're backed up, but the backups aren't mounting either.
Can someone on the mother-ship please give us some info?
-- Many of my Firewire devices are now suddenly "Unknown Device" including my venerable old Schwann 6-port hub -- and the Mac can't determine the speed either. Whatever that means.
One of my two firewire splitters (one port to 2 ports) gets the spinning pizza and the "Unable to list" devices when it's plugged in (directly to the single FW400 port on the Mac Mini Intel. The other one works but isn't recognized by name.
Does 10.6.3 have a database of hardware it's trying to find things in?
Or is it just snootier than earlier versions?
My problem was with a LaCie FW400 drive... one of my older ones.
I changed the FW cable and it came right back on line.
If you have another drive that uses the same power supply, try switching those out too. Do them one at a time though, so you know if you get the fix, which fix you got.
I've got two FW800 externals (two different cables, two different power supplies). Either both work on neither work.
Last night neither worked. This morning both work... then 10 minutes later neither work. It's like the drives are allowed to go to sleep without the system "remembering" that's what's happened. Trying to browse to a directory that's not been cached after that point, and it's just beachballs.
Nothing helpful in the Console messages, Finder hangs when trying to view an uncached directory on the drives, and the Activity Monitor hangs if you try to see Disk Activity once there's a Finder hang.
I've reset everything... several times - PRAM, SMC, let everything sit unpowered for a few minutes, etc. Some of these occasionally work, but nothing provides a permanent fix.
Ah! The proverbial missing information. Then, maybe the HDs have built-in so-called energy saving spin-down routines. WD is notorious for that kind of stuff.
