Can I check my firewire port is working...

fjon

without plugging anything into it?

I had a Firewire external hard drive which I returned as it wasn't being recognised. I returned it and got a USB one, but I'm now wondering if my Firewire port is faulty.
Is there any way I can test this?

QuadLeo

IMO the only way to really check if the port is working is to plug something into it. Maybe a 1st or 2nd gen iPod, or another mac if you have one. Some DV cams and digital cameras use firewire so you could try one of those too.

fjon

Ah crap, I have nothing with a firewire connection. I though OSX might have some hardware diagnostic abilities with Windows.

QuadLeo

I'd say there is a way to check it in system profiler, but again I think the only way to be sure is to plug something in.

ZENER

Hi Fjon ! How about telling us the whole story ? What Mac do you have, what version of Mac OS X and more importantly - what make/model of firewire hard disk did you try ?

Also do you have a camcorder with a firewire port ? Most digital (DV/MP2) types have one. Plug it in and try importing video with iMovie if you have one.

ZEN

Sad Professor

You'll definitely need to have something connected in order to test it. Some good suggestions already; also early ipods came with a firewire cable, if you know anyone with one you could borrow it.

nialler

Bring it out to the apple store in pc world (think it's in airside) and tell em to boot it up in firewire target mode, you'll definitely know then.

fjon

Ok, I managed to get myself a loan of a firewire audio interface, plugged it in, and it was recognised. Glad that it was indeed the harddrive that was faulty!
Thanks for your help. Was a pity there wasn't an easier way to do this though.

trout

Does the iTunes diagnostics check for the presence of a firewire port ?

I think it does.

You'd still want to prove the point with an external device attached, though.
Glad it all worked out.

Talisman

If you have another computer with a firewire port you can connect the Mac to it with a firewire cable and boot the Mac in Firewire Target Disk Mode by holding the "t" key while booting. This turns your Mac into a rather expensive external firewire drive.

The other computer should recognise the external drive but it won't be able to mount the volume unless it's also a Mac.

merkuree

I have ahd intermittent issues with firewire drives on a macbook pro running 10.5.4. However, some of the issues appeared to be drive specific. For LaCie drives, a firmware update cleared the issue. For another drive, replacing the firewire cable seemd to solve the issue.

With some issues, I have suspected that the drive was not getting sufficient power from the port. No real proof on the latter other than I notice that I appear to encounter frequent firewire issues when both of my USB ports are in use. I wonder if the USB and firewire bus somehow share bus power....