connecting firewire800 to thunderbolt 4

Charles Palenz wrote:

HWTech: I'm sure you mean well, somehow we are not communicating... I am not connecting solely to a USB-C port (someone else's response and speculation), never said that; I tried the majority of thunderbolt ports which is what I reported.

Actually you did in your initial post which I quote here:

"I have Firewire 800 HD's that I was going to connect to one of my thunderbolt 4 ports. I have the adapters: Apple Firewire 800 to thunderbolt 2 and thunderbolt 2 to 3"

The "thunderbot 2 to 3" adapter you mention utilizes a USB-C connector. The Mac Studio only has USB-C type ports, with no old style Thunderbolt ports using the mini-display port connector which is why you are using the two adapters which in theory should work. I'm not even discussing the two old style USB-A style ports on the back as they are completely irrelevant to any discussion regarding Thunderbolt.

Then you mention this in another post"

"if its a Mac Studio, which port did you use? there are four T4 in the back right side besides the two "USB-C/T4 in front, and on the monitor there are four in the back on the right side. "

The highlighted part is of concern, because that is only true for the Mac Studio M1 Ultra (supports Thunderbot 4 and USB4 protocols). On the M1 Max, those front two USB-C ports are only rated for the USB protocol and do not support Thunderbolt.

USB-C is a very confusing mess. It is very important in this discussion to distinguish between the connector type (USB-C) which has nothing to do with the protocols supported by the port and the actual communication protocols that each port supports which would be Thunderbolt and/or USB. When talking about "USB-C", this is only talking about the connector type (aka style) and does not tell us anything about what protocols are being supported in any particular implementation of the USB-C style port/connector. I've seen several misrepresentations in this thread which can cause confusion and misunderstandings and unfortunately even Apple's own documentation is contributing to this confusion by mentioning "USB-C" to mean the USB protocol which is very unfortunate and misleading. Here is a screenshot of the Mac Studio's technical specifications taken from this page:

Mac Studio (2022) - Technical Specifications

Notice that for the M1 Mac Apple only mentions "USB-C" for the front ports which unfortunately Apple means supports only the USB3 protocol (no Thunderbolt). If you look at the caption below the picture of the Mac Studio you will notice it says "USB-C (Thunderbolt 4 or USB3)" which again unfortunately shows Apple dropping the ball on providing a clear distinction to an already confusing topic. Knowing that Apple's Thunderbolt 4 ports also support the USB protocol, the "OR" in the description is very telling and supports my assumption/interpretation that Apple's note for the M1 Max Apple's of "USB-C" meaning only the USB3 protocol is accurate, otherwise why even note a difference between the Max and the Ultra? I hope this helps everyone to know that not all USB-C ports are alike and great care must be taken with knowing what each specific USB-C port is designed to support by trying to interpret the manufacturer's documentation and looking for the Thunderbolt symbol (lightning bolt) or USB symbol (kind of looks like a trident or pitchfork).

Charles Palenz wrote:

HWTech: Connecting just the adapters without a HD or device on the end creates the error message and adding the device doesn't change anything.

I'm not personally familiar with these second generation M1 systems, but I believe @Keith Barkley is correct that the USB-C port you are using only supports the USB protocol (or the system thinks this is the case since it does not seem to like a Thunderbolt device on that port shown in your screenshot).

You cite ways to work with these drives, my question is about the connection that would seem to be do-able using adapters and does not work. And I'm not aware of this limitation in anything I have read or seen; there must be an explanation or way to resolve.

I would never even know this myself except for multiple posts on this Apple forum since 2020 when the first M1 Macs were released. It only affects certain chipsets used by the external devices and it is possible macOS and/or the system firmware has been updated to fix some of the compatibility issues. I have also personally experienced this problem myself with a first generation M1 Mac. If there is a compatibility issue, then the only way around it is to use another device (another Mac, or removing the bare drive from its existing Firewire enclosure and using another USB adapter/dock/enclosure to connect the bare drive to this Mac). Personally I think removing the bare drive from the Firewire enclosure is your best option. You can use an adapter like this which will work with an IDE or SATA based hard drive and includes everything you need (except you may also need a USB-C to USB-A adapter as well if your Mac does not have a USB-A port):

https://www.startech.com/en-us/hdd/usb3ssataide

I am using Apple branded adapters bought directly from Apple.

Usually this is the best most reliable option, but maybe Apple broke something in Monterey or perhaps even with the firmware on the M1 Mac. The fact that you are getting the error when only these two adapters are connected without any drives means either one of these adapters is bad, or you are connecting them to a USB only USB-C port on the Mac, or there is a macOS/M1 firmware compatibility issue. IIRC, some of the new M1 Macs have some USB-C ports only supporting the USB protocol and are not compatible with Thunderbolt. Make sure the USB-C port on the Mac you are using has a lightning bolt symbol next to it which indicates the port supports the Thunderbolt protocol. If there is no Thunderbolt symbol or if there is instead a USB symbol, then the port most likely only supports the USB protocol.

Continued.....

Charles Palenz wrote:

I know the tricks to work with old HDs; I seek only one thing with this post and that is how to get the adapters to work or an explanation.

If you connected the Apple USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter to the Mac along with the Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Firewire Adapter, then either you connected them to a USB-C port which only supports the USB protocol (front two ports on the Mac Studio M1 Max), or your Mac, the adapter, or macOS has a hardware issue or a compatibility problem with those adapters. Did you try connecting just the USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter to the Mac to see if you get the same error which may tell you a bit more?

FYI, I have seen that error shown in your first screenshot before when connecting a 2018+ Mac which is in DFU Mode to another USB-C equipped Mac utilizing the USB-C Thunderbolt3/USB3 port and the Apple USB-C charging cable which only supports the USB-2 protocol in order to "Restore" the firmware on the 2018+ Macs. While this connection works for its intended purpose using Apple Configurator 2 to "Restore" the firmware of these Macs, I have been unable to use the same USB-C charging cable to transfer data between two Macs with one of the Macs in Target Disk Mode. The moral of this story is that Apple has taken an already complicated situation of a poorly named connector type (USB-C) and made it even more complicated by not even allowing devices to function properly on supported USB standards utilizing the USB-C ports even when that USB-C port supports the USB protocol. This means it is unlikely that anyone here will be able to provide you a better explanation since Apple is unlikely to share secrets or admit anything.

As for getting your adapters to work, then you need to verify those adapters are working properly individually. If they are working properly, then you are left with some sort of hardware issue with this Mac or a compatibility issue (hardware or software) with these adapters. Which leaves my previous suggestion to either use an older Mac to transfer the data from those old Firewire drives to newer USB3 drives, or to remove the bare physical drives from those Firewire enclosures and connecting them using the adapter I linked previously.

Since you are only looking for "I seek only one thing with this post and that is how to get the adapters to work or an explanation.", then I will leave this thread since what I have posted as much as I can to assist in this endeavor and because I don't think you will ever get the answer you are seeking.

Good luck to everyone.

Unfortunately some devices are just not compatible with an M1 Mac. I personally experienced this myself where the device would not work at all on my M1 Mac, but worked perfectly fine on an Intel Mac using the same exact cable and same version of macOS. There are other reports on these Apple forums as well.

If you still have an older Mac available, then I suggest using the older Mac to transfer the data on these Firewire drives to a newer USB3 drive, but make sure the USB3 drive actually works on the M1 Mac and make sure to use Disk Utility to erase the USB3 drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled) so it is compatible with your older Mac (also a better file system when using a hard drive).

Another option would be to remove the physical hard drive from the Firewire enclosure and connect it to the newer Mac using a USB drive adapter, dock, or enclosure. The type of drive will determine what adapter/dock/enclosure is appropriate since many Firewire enclosures are likely using IDE drives instead of SATA drives depending on the age of these drives. I recommend trying to find a device which uses the ASMedia USB chipset as I've never had a problem with them working with any computer, but not all devices will mention the chipset used in their products.

Also you should always have frequent and regular backups of your computer and all external media (including the cloud) which includes important & unique data.

> Personally I think removing the bare drive from the Firewire enclosure is your best option

Ditto. I have many old FW400/800 enclosures and docks (OWC, WiebeTech) and ATA/SATA drives, DV/D8 camcorder and Apple FW-TB adapters that seemed to work in Mac mini 2018 Mojave. But I then had some random LG TB Ultrafine display blackouts that were cured by switching the old SATA HDDs to a more modern OWC dual drive USB3 SATA dock and retiring the D8 camcorder and maybe using the old G4 PowerBook or Mac mini 2009 for DV if it still needed.

It seems FW support is getting very flaky (AFAIK macOS 12.3 disabled DV import for a while) and I’d use old FW Macs for it.

Hi,

Did you try the setup with the T4 ports on the back of the Studio?

I had the same issue, you have connected to a USB-C port, not a TB port. Confusing I know, since they look identical.

I was using an iMac24 with the 2 USB-C and 2 TB ports