OSXFAQ Reader Tips 

Firewire Devices don't show up

OSXFAQ Reader Tip By Doug Regester

Firewire Devices don't show up

I haven't seen this tip before. It took me a while to figure this out. Maybe some other folks would benefit should this situation ever arise.

My Firewire devices would not show up on the desktop of my QuickSilver G4 PowerMac. Everything was working fine, leave town a few days, and when I came back there were no Firewire devices to be found. System Profiler could not find them, and Hardware Test was all good, nothing showed up a problem. Also ran the usual diagnostic/repair utilities (Disk Warrior/Plus Optimizer), but still no FireWire devices. Test the drives on other Macs running OS X, and the drives were good, they worked fine. I tried logging in as Troubleshooter, my clean system that can rule out user/preference issues. Hmmm, no FireWire devices there either.

None of my compilation of troubleshooting tips mentioned this problem, so I turned to the Apple Support Knowledge Base. After searching many articles, I came to Article 88338. Basically there are 5 steps to Firewire Nirvana: 1) Shut down the computer, 2) Disconnect all Firewire devices and all other cables except keyboard and mouse, 3) Disconnect the computer from the power outlet, and wait 3-5 minutes, 4) Plug the computer back in and turn it on, 5) Reconnect the Firewire devices one at a time and test. Test with each Firewire port, if you Mac has more than one. Hallelujah! Life is good again, I can see and use my FireWire devices.

I'm not sure what unplugging the computer does. I noticed somewhere in the Knowledge Base that there are auto-resetting fuses on the FireWire bus. Does unplugging cause them to reset, or force them to reset when they don't do it automatically? I have no idea.

Enjoy :-)

If you would like to see your tip here send it to us at contribute@osxfaq.com, You could be famous too!!