Exteranal Hard Drive not recognized through firewire

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Hey, I just bought a 320gb western digital external hard drive. I am having a problem though, when i plug it in through usb, it mounts to the desktop just fine. however when i try to connect it through firewire nothing happens, the iMac can't find it. I know it is not a firewire port problem because i can hook up my video camera just fine to it. anyone have any suggestions or tips to make it work. Transfering through USB is just way too slow for me so i need to use it through firewire 400. Thanks!
 
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Open up the disk utility and see if it shows up in there...
 
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Then maybe something's wrong with the firewire port of your Hard drive. Cause disks that fail to mount at least show up in the disk utility. Have you checked the hard drive on another PC/Mac?
 
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i just pluged it into my pc laptop through 4-6 pin firewire and that recognized it. the only thing i can think of now is that the 6-6 pin firewire that came in the box is what is not working.
 
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This may sound noob but what exactly is firewire.. i've seen it.

Is it exactly the same as a usb? can i plug usb stuff in to it like when im charging my iPod?
 
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Heheh.... how about you wikipedia it to find all about Firewire. basically, USB is actually 480Mbps while Firewire is 400 mbps, yet, firewire in the real world is much faster than USB. There is also a superfast FW800 for high end stuff.

You can get a firewire cable for your iPod though it won't make much of a difference cause the iPod HD isn't thaat fast.
 
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is the firewire the same shape as a usb?
I'm a little confused.
How is 400 mps faster than 480 mbps?
 
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Nope. the firewire port looks quite a bit different from USB. It is a totally different architechture.

I technically don't know how the firewire architecture is faster, but it is. USB can't maintain those speeds of 480mbps while Firewire can. However you don't get firewire pen drives and mice and such. You will only find firewire in stuff that needs speed, like Hard drives, camcorders, and stuff like that.
 

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is the firewire the same shape as a usb?
I'm a little confused.
How is 400 mps faster than 480 mbps?

For one thing USB 2.0 has more overhead than Firewire. For sure Firewire is faster no matter what the specs say. I have done test after test and Firewire always wins and by a healthy margin. Like the other poster said, it's not the same at all as USB. Different plug, Different technology.
 
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i just pluged it into my pc laptop through 4-6 pin firewire and that recognized it. the only thing i can think of now is that the 6-6 pin firewire that came in the box is what is not working.

I had the same problem. I finally tried one of our own Firewire cords and it works fine now. I just emailed Western Digital about it (I bought the exact same hard drive as you) so I will let you know what they say. :)
 
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i have the same problem...i have macbook pro 17" 2.4 ghz and imac 24" 2.8 ghz ..my wd 320 gb external hd works fine with mbp when i connect it through firewire....but when i connect wd by firewire to my 1 day old imac ,it doesnt recognize the hd...when i connect wd hd through usb port to my imac everything works fine....
 

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