LaCie d2 FireWire drive not mounting on 2018 MacBook Pro USB-C

The Lacie D2's of that era came in a number of different flavors, FW400, FW800, eSata, USB ... but they ALL had a USB 2.0 port. The USB 2.0 port was a "Type B" USB connector same as what most printers have. It was limited to 480 MBps which is slow by today's standards.

To connect the old D2 to a Mac that has USB-C ports you will need one of the following:

• a USB cable that has a USB-B male plug on one end and a USB-C male plug on the other end (Example cable) -or-
• a USB cable that has a USB-B male plug on one end and a USB-A male plug on the other end; plus a USB-A to USB-C plug adapter. (Example cable and example plug adapter)

No cable with a Firewire plug on one end and a USB plug on the other end is going to work. They are scams.

CGM1086 wrote:

I purchased a cable from Amazon that has a FireWire connection at one end and a USB Type A port at the other end.

No, no, no, no, no!!!

Those "USB-A to FireWire" adapters are always scams, or something other than what you think they are. USB-A and Firewire are too different to support such adapters. But there are fake adapters where somebody has glued together a USB-A connector and a FireWire connector.

If you are lucky, such "adapters" don't work, but don't damage your equipment. If you are unlucky, they have pins connected in ways that cause damage to your equipment.

When I plug this cable into a USB Type A to a USB Type C adapter, it does not mount the drive onto the 2018 MacBook Pro desktop. Can anyone point me to where I can buy a cable that will work?

You would need a combination of

• An Apple Thunderbolt 3-to-2 adapter
• An Apple Thunderbolt-to-FireWire adapter (now discontinued and almost impossible to find)
• A FireWire 800 to FireWire 400 cable

or equivalent. Thunderbolt brings PCIe-type functionality out of the box, and it is possible to construct Thunderbolt-based FireWire adapters in the same way it is possible to construct FireWire PCIe expansion cards. Apple could have built a Thunderbolt 3 to FireWire 800 adapter, but never did, thus the requirement for the chain.

Note that Apple dropped all support for FireWire in macOS 26 (Tahoe). Your 2018 MacBook Pro is not capable of running anything higher than macOS 15 (Sequoia), so it should still be able to access FireWire drives – if you have the appropriate adapters, and if the drives are formatted using HFS+ or APFS (not plain HFS, for which all support went away in Catalina).

However, if you upgraded your Mac in the future, your new system would not be able to access FireWire drives … even with the appropriate adapters.

HWTech wrote: You are probably better off removing the actual Hard Drive from that enclosure and using a USB to SATA Adapter, or possibly a USB to IDE adapter depending on the connection on the back of the Hard Drive inside that enclosure.

The pictured enclosure is a type of Lacie D2 that I never encountered. It is indeed FW400 only.

I agree with HWTech, the best thing is probably to remove the HDD from the Lacie enclosure and put it in a newer enclosure that supports USB 3.x. There are 2 screws on the back plate (one is under the warranty sticker); once you remove them you can slide the drive out of the case and then remove it from the frame. Note you may also need to loosen or remove the screws that hold the foot onto the case.

It is probably a SATA drive but there is an off chance (given the age) that it may be an IDE drive. There should be a sticker on the drive indicating which type it is; if not, a picture of the data connector will help us ID it for you. You would need to get a new enclosure that matches the drive's interface type.

After you copy off whatever files you need, I also suggest scrapping the drive ... at 15 years old it is at risk of failure.

USB B port looks like this

for USB-2 up to 480 M bits/sec (nominally faster than firewire 400)

or this:

for USB-3 (at least 5,000 m bits/sec)

...and you have none of those.

what about this cable:

<< it came with a cable that had a FireWire connection on the end that connected to the d2 drive and a thunderbolt connection at the other end to connect to the thunderbolt port on the 2011 MacBook Pro. >>

... then add a ThunderBolt-3 <-> Thunderbolt-2 adapter ??

You are probably better off removing the actual Hard Drive from that enclosure and using a USB to SATA Adapter, or possibly a USB to IDE adapter depending on the connection on the back of the Hard Drive inside that enclosure. If that drive was new around 2011, then it would likely be a SATA drive. Usually the aluminum enclosure allow relatively easy access as evidenced by the screws on that back plate.

Further, a Firewire connection is probably not possible. Your 2018 MacBook Pro supports Thunderbolt 3 via its USB-C ports. In order to connect a Firewire drive to it you would need 2 adapters:

• Apple Thunderbolt-3 to Thunderbolt-2 adapter
• Apple Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adapter.

Unfortunately Apple discontinued the Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adapter some years ago and they are now about as rare as dinosaur teeth.

if your original cable has a genuine ThunderBolt-2 connection (should be labeled with the Power Bolt with tiny arrowhead), you should be able to use an Apple Thunderbolt-3 <-> Thunderbolt-2 adapter, about US$50.

This appears to be an enclosure for a rotating Magnetic drive with some external connectors.

Does it include any USB connectors, such as a USB-type-B connector (often called a "Peripheral/Printer" connector?

older USB-2 ports, which run at only 480 M bits/sec, provide an effective 48 M Bytes/sec potential data transfer speed. This is comparable to the maximum steady-state transfer rate of most Rotating Magnetic drives.

Yes, drive-makers may show specs that say their drives can support a first burst at up to 120 M Bytes/sec, but that is followed by an enormous dead-time while the head moves to the next track for more data. Effectively these drives run no faster steady-state than about 50 G bytes/sec, so having a bus at comparable speeds does not slow data transfer in a substantial way.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

USB-2 up to 480 M bits/sec (nominally faster than firewire 400)

USB 2 (up to 480 Mbps) may be nominally faster than Firewire 400 (up to 400 Mbps), but in practice, is slower. If I remember correctly, with USB 2, the host CPU has to do a lot of work to supervise the transfer. With Firewire, the Firewire controller does a lot of the work – a more efficient arrangement.