[rockhaus]

1. Ti667 powered up.

2. FireWire connected to external drive

3. With other end of cable upside-down, I TOUCHED it to TiBook's firewire port (it wouldn't plug IN because I couldn't SEE it was upside down). POOF. No blue smoke, but firewire hasn't worked since.

4. I tried the external drive on another machine and this proved that it was poofed. I replaced the enclosure (new Oxford), and the drive works on another machine. Data OK.

5 The new enclosure gets power from my TiBook, but is not 'there'

6. I tried my camcorder and Maxtor on the TiBook, and they're not recognized, all proving the TiBook also poofed.

7. Apple System Profile recognizes the FireWire port, but NO software recognizes ANY firewire device (correctly) attached.

Never attach a FireWire device while your machine is on.

With the cable end upside down, I sent power to data.

No wonder the 12" & 17" have ports on the side, where they can be seen.

[Eug]

You must of pressed pretty hard to fit a Firewire cable in upside down. Mine doesn't even come close to making a connection with it upside down. Sorry to hear that happened though.

Anyways, I prefer the ports at the back. It's far too cluttered at the side. (I had an iBook.)

P.S. Welcome to MacNN.

[zigzag]

rockhaus, check over at macintouch.com - there's been an ongoing report about this problem.

The latest theory is that it's caused by bus-powered FW devices - something about the Mac sending power to the device and having it bounce back and fry the FW port. Was your drive bus-powered?

According to somebody who talked to somebody at Apple, they beefed up the FW circuits in Spring 2002 to prevent this.

Sorry to hear about it - you're not alone.

[rockhaus]

Fascinating.

Thanks. Yes, one drive is a self powered Maxtor, and downstream I had a generic bus-powered enclosure with Oxford 911 containing a shiny, new IBM Travelstar 60GB, which is okay now.

I replaced the enclosure with an identical one because it WAS cheap. But, thanks again, I'll look into it further, and get DC adapter for the new enclosure.

But then, the idea was to have more PORTABLE storage...

Meanwhile, TiBook firewire no workie.

Haven't tested the Maxtor yet, to see what survived there.

My assumption that I had the FW cable end upside-down is that, no it wouldn't go in, but I remember trying to do it - wrong - at least once, on the back of the TiBook 667 (which is just over a year old).

For a while, the cable just wouldn't sit tight on the TiBook, like it refused full insertion. Then that stopped and all was well.

These are the quality cables.

Not having a second computer, I'll give TiBook to AppleCare when I can. Then we'll see what other problems develop. Then I'll put the Travelstar 60GB inside TiBook.

Thanks again, I'll look into it further.

*Poof*