Canon XH-A1 Firewire 400 to 800 Capture Issue

I have two Canon cameras: XH-A1 and GL2, which both of the standard firewire 4-pin (400)

Why are both my Canon cameras not able to connect to my Macbook Pro (Late 2011) using a firewire 4-pin (400) to firewire 9-pin (800)?

The only way I was able to get the cameras to communicate with my new Macbook Pro (Late 2011) was to daisy chain 2 external hard drives, which one had 800 inputs and the second with 400 inputs.

1. Macbook Pro (Late 2011) > 9-pin 800 firewire cable with a 9-pin 800 firewire at the end of the cable > First External hard drive with 9-pin firewire inputs
2. First External Hard drive > 9-pin 800 firewire cable with a 9-pin 400 firewire at the end of the cable > Second External hard drive with 9-pin 400 firewire inputs
3. Second External hard drive > 9-pin 400 firewire cable with a 4-pin 400 firewire at the end of the cable > XH-A1 camera

Below is my trouble shooting:

Previously, using my original Macbook Pro (2008), my XH-A1 or GL2 cameras are able to communicate with my Macbook Pro (2008) using the 4-pin firewire to 9-pin (400) firewire with no issues. Meanwhile, when I connect my new Macbook Pro (late 2011), using the same cameras, but with a 4-pin firewire to 9-pin (800) firewire, my macbook is NOT able to communicate with my cameras.

I tried a handful of 4-pin 400 to 9-pin 800 firewires that I picked up from the store (different brands, etc) just to rule out if it was the cable causing the issues and each cable was not able to communicate with my mac. The only thing I have not tried is to connect my cameras to my mac mini at home, which it has a firewire 800 input. I've always used firewire 400 to 400 and this is a brand new macbook pro (2011) has no issues connecting to firewire 800 external hard drives or firewire 400 external hard drives.

I hope this helps anyone out there in the same boat, beacuse I haven't read any forum posts that says to daisy chain external hard drives to your computer and camera to make it work, but this is the only solution I was able find myself.

Thanks,

Evan