Firewire devices no longer showing

Question

Firewire devices no longer showing

This afternoon - for the first time in years - no firewire device showed up either on the Desktop or in the Apple Profiler.

Restarted several times with no success.

Devices on Firewire 400 (via bus) external CD reader/writer and DVD ditto.

Devices on Firewire 800, three LaCie drives linked together. Tried each one separately, no success.

Which is bit of a pain, these being my backup and ancillary storage devices ...

Disconnected them all. Restarted G5. Closed down and left G5 for half-an-hour (following a suggestion in a forum). Reconnected, restarted; no joy.

Console message includes:

Jun 6 14:50:03 localhost kernel[0]: FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 42 built-in now active, GUID 001124ff fe86cb20; max speed s800.

and then, at the bottom of the report:

Jun 6 14:52:47 SarahJane kernel[0]: FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 42 built-in: no valid selfIDs for more than 2 minutes after bus reset.

Jun 6 14:55:59 SarahJane kernel[0]: FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 42 built-in: no valid selfIDs for more than 2 minutes after bus reset.

Jun 6 14:59:11 SarahJane kernel[0]: FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 42 built-in: no valid selfIDs for more than 2 minutes after bus reset.

Can anyone help, please? I've run all the usual things, hardware check, diskwarrior, techtool (though none of these seem to check the firewire bus).

G5 2.7DP 8GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.4.11), also 10.5.8 on 2nd internal drive.

Posted on Jun 6, 2011 8:30 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Jun 6, 2011 10:51 AM in response to Shaun Ferguson

Shaun,

Do you have a second Mac on which you can test your firewire divises? Your port could have died.

Ji~m

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

239,177 points

Jun 6, 2011 10:54 AM in response to Shaun Ferguson

Are these bus powered or AC powered drives?

Might try this...

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20051129074631518

Or a very strange cure in the last post here...

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1872178?threadID=1872178

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Answer 3

Jun 6, 2011 11:07 AM in response to Appaloosa mac man

No second Mac with firewire.

This G5 has 400 fw ports at front, back, and on display - no joy using any.

One 800 port at back.

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Answer 4

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Jun 6, 2011 11:12 AM in response to Shaun Ferguson

LaCie "invented" the whole "reset FW bus ports" troubleshooting.

And one reason I never recommended using, always to look elsewhere for FW drives.

Unplugging all cables, inspecting cables and ports, try different cables, reset the SMC/PMU.

You didn't reset the PMU.

Maybe the power brick adapter?

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Answer 5

Jun 6, 2011 11:18 AM in response to BDAqua

All external drives are AC powered.

I'll try the solutions listed and report back.

Thanks.

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Answer 6

BDAqua

Level 10

239,177 points

Jun 6, 2011 11:35 AM in response to The hatter

>Maybe the power brick adapter?

Indeed, LaCie owners have seen lots of problems with the power adapters.

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Answer 7

Jun 6, 2011 12:49 PM in response to BDAqua

Right - had a look through, and after two attempts (mutter mutter and splutter curses) got everything going again.

The cure was, in this case, as listed in your first link: disconnect computer etc.

The first time the CD reader came back but the external drives wouldn't, so I said a few words that my wife would not approve of, then tried again but this time connected the (800 fw) external drives first, and then, when the buggers showed up, connected the cd drive on the 400 cable. I think the dvd drive on the 400 has died, so I'll leave that disconnected.

Oh it's a great machine when it's running right, it's a lovely gadget to play with; but when something goes wrong it can be very frustrating ...

I sometimes wish I'd had one of these when I was still at school and a little quicker on the uptake.

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Answer 8

Jun 6, 2011 12:51 PM in response to BDAqua

Power brick adapter problems.

So I understand; but I have had no problems, and my older machine (PowerMac7300) still uses an external (4Gb) LaCie I bought in about 1997; it's still running, though the guarantee was just for 5 years. The other 3 attached to th G5 have, so far, not had any major problems.

The only drive I would avoid like the Plague is the Iomega. I had one, then a second, Jaz drive (cost me about £400 all in in those days); and I'll never use them again.

No doubt, though, someone will have a good word for them.

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