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FireWire 400 to USB.

I have an old external hard drive with only FireWire 400 plugs. Are there functional adaptors to connect a FireWire 400 to USB? I bought one on Amazon, but it didn't work.

Posted on Mar 14, 2023 10:32 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 14, 2023 12:05 PM

Hi,


The only direct adapter from Apple was a Thunderbolt-to-FireWire 800 adapter.

Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter - Apple

In order to connect a FireWire 400 device, a simple FireWire 800 to FireWire 400 cable would be needed.

However, a computer using something like Thunderbolt 3 or USB-C would require a combination of adapters, and that would be entirely experimental. It may or may not work. A better way could be to buy an old Mac computer with FireWire 800 or 400 ports, and then transfer the FireWire hard disk drive contents via a network, a USB flash drive, or a CompactFlash memory card (via a PC Card adapter for CF and/or other appropriate card readers).

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 14, 2023 12:05 PM in response to dnellis68

Hi,


The only direct adapter from Apple was a Thunderbolt-to-FireWire 800 adapter.

Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter - Apple

In order to connect a FireWire 400 device, a simple FireWire 800 to FireWire 400 cable would be needed.

However, a computer using something like Thunderbolt 3 or USB-C would require a combination of adapters, and that would be entirely experimental. It may or may not work. A better way could be to buy an old Mac computer with FireWire 800 or 400 ports, and then transfer the FireWire hard disk drive contents via a network, a USB flash drive, or a CompactFlash memory card (via a PC Card adapter for CF and/or other appropriate card readers).

FireWire 400 to USB.

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