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Daisy chain FW 800 issues!

I'm having problems getting my ext. hard drives to daisy chain via the FW 800 ports! Sometimes it will connect the first drive but when I try to daisy chain a 2nd drive to the 1st, it either bumps it off or does nothing, and it worked a few hours ago!D

PowerMac

Posted on Jun 13, 2011 11:46 AM

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8 replies

Jun 13, 2011 12:31 PM in response to Don Archibald

I am using a G Tech drive with power supply, a WD passport that does not require power but both have FW 800 ports. The passport was working earlier but then failed to mount later when I attempted to connect it in a daisy chain. Then it just wouldn't connect on its own. When I tried the usb port it worked and I've done some reading and it seems to be a common problem. I need it to work on the FW 800 and need it to daisy chain.


Also the FW 800 connections on the power mac tower don't always allow the ext. HD to mount. I had had power outages last week but it was working today. I don't know if that may be attributing to the faulty connections. Any advice?

Jun 13, 2011 12:44 PM in response to Luca12

Any firewire device which needs to use bus power (rather than having its own power supply) should be connected upstream (closer to the Mac's port) than devices which do have their own power supply.


I prefer to use FW devices which have their own power supplies. This removes the burden on the bus (hence the Mac's power supply) from needing to supply power.


Have you tried shutting the machine down, connecting the FW drives, then booting up? Sometimes this works because it forces the machine to recognize (via bus scans) and configure itself to everything connected at that time. Inconvenient, yes, but if the config is semi-permanent, having to do that once in a while is not too bothersome.

Jun 13, 2011 1:03 PM in response to Don Archibald

I have another similar problem, I am using a WD My Book Studio ext. HD and a Gtech drive, but when I connect the WD drive to the FW 800 port and then attempt to daisy chain the Gtech to it, it kicks the WD off and gives me the device removal mssg. When I connect them with the Gtech first and then the WD, it will connect fine. I'm a little concerned because it had never done this before.

Jun 12, 2012 12:37 PM in response to Luca12

1 more question concerning the same subject:

I am trying to daisy chain 2 identical lacie 1T ext. hard drives with firewire 800 to 1 port on the mac, runnibg with OSX. (1 is formatted FAT32 and 1 is formatted for mac). I connected everything as explained above (first drive to the mac, 2nd drive to the first one, both have separate power supplies), but when I switch power on, I can see on my desktop only the first drive (connected directly to my mac) but not the 2nd one. The blue light on the drive is burning on the first one, but is flashing on the 2nd...

I never did this before, What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

Jun 29, 2013 8:42 AM in response to Luca12

Yeah

I have been doing Data management

For several years now

And I used to daisy chain gdrive minis and LaCie ruggeds

All the time, suddenly in the last 6 months

It doesn't allow these mini type drives

To see 2 drives simultaneously


I can even pass through one drive and give the

2nd drive juice and read it and copy files to it.


But you can't do the simultaneous copies that was commonplace a year ago


This process is used for copying digital video files

Daisy chain FW 800 issues!

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