Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adapter not enough power

I would like to extend your warning to Macbook Air 2011 users. (Macbook Air 4,2)

I have a G-Drive Mini with Firewire 800, 400 and a usb 2.0 mini port. Usb drives get powered with ONLY the usb cable (without the round DC power connection) while Firewire 800 over the Thunderbolt port makes the drive click.

VERY ANNOYING APPLE!

G-Drives are not cheap.

Just to throw in my G-Drive 500 GB on a MBP Retina 15". It does not work with the FW800 to TB adapter. :-(

The drive does not have an external power supply or connector so I can use it only with USB2.

By the look of this post, apple's thunderbolt to firewire adapter has many an unhappy customer.

Im hoping to receive some insight from the forum re: my Presonus Firebox, which is firewire powered and unable to run while connected to my brand new iMac using the TB adapter.

The Firebox works perfectly while plugged in to my macbook pro using the 6 pin to 9 in cable alone, but when I attempt to use the thunderbolt adapter with the same cable on either computer (new iMac and the 2 year old macbook pro)... well, no dice. Im trying to get my home studio upgrade off the ground and this is causing some headaches.

Bottom line: is it likely that I am experiencing an issue (similar to others on the forum) that will be corrected with the use of an external power supply (not relying on the cable alone)? I plan to pick one up at radio shack tomorrow.

Thanks in advance for the help.

I have had to reformat a 500 GB Iomega bus powered external drive after connected via an Apple thunderbolt to Firewire converter. The slightest movement of the Thunderbolt connection on my MacBook Pro Retina causes the drive to unmount. A LaCie bus powered drive has had similar problems including very slow backup over Time Machine.

I have had reliable results with a couple self-powered LaCie external Firewire 800 drives going through the adapter, but even these get unmounted if the Thunderbolt adapter connection gets bumped. So far I would rate this adapter as flakey.

I'll give tech support a try, but after the experience of the last week, I simply cannot trust the Thunderbolt-Firewire adapter.

Sounds like a defective adaptor or port. I've used the adaptor successfully on two computers and I've frequently done more than bumped it - I've moved the drive and computer from one location to another while still connected and the drive hasn't dismounted.

Bad experiences with Edirol FA-101 for recording instruments : grind sound, hicup, no sound for seconds... The imac seems lost sync. This interface had know four mac before with no problems. But thunderbolt - Firewire on iMac 2013 don't do the job anymore. What a pity.

ERROR: FireWire (OHCI) Lucent ID 5901 PCI: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt

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