Firewire on Windows XP?

617 Views 4 Replies 3 Participants Last post by Stewart Vernon, Sep 16, 2008

Stewart Vernon

Discussion Starter · Sep 14, 2008

I have an older computer, no USB 2.0 and no open card slot to install one... but I do have a Soundblaster Audigy that has a 1394 port on it. I have in the past used this port under Windows 2K for a digital video camera... but have never used an external hard drive nor used it at all since upgrading to Windows XP.

So anyway, I needed a new hard drive and bought one last night... I put my old drive in an external enclosure to copy files over afterwards... but my computer doesn't seem to recognize the firewire connection of the drive. My computer does recognize the port itself within Device Manager (I see the OHCI device as well as a 1394 networking connection).

The enclosure and drive works fine via USB, so I've been going the slow route to get my files transferred... it's a 100GB drive so it will be a while at USB 1 speeds!

I figured I'd post and see if anyone else has any experience (even better if with an Audigy 1394) with external firewire drives and XP.

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Stewart Vernon

Discussion Starter · #3 · Sep 15, 2008

deltafowler said:
Has the new drive been formatted?
Does it appear in disk manager?

The drive was my old drive that was being replaced. I need to copy data from it, so yes it was formatted long ago. And as I noted it has been working fine at USB speeds to move stuff... it's just PAINfully slow since I can't use USB 2 with this computer... but I have been moving stuff in batches during overnight when I am asleep since I can't get the firewire to work.

It's like I said... the computer sees the firewire port just fine... just doesn't see the drive connected to it. Same drive/enclosure plugged into the USB port works... and if I had a newer computer with USB 2 I wouldn't even care because the speed would be the same or faster anyway.

At this point it's looking like I'll be done with the copying before I find an answer. I've searched all over the place online, found lots of people with similar problems with some external firewire drive... but no one with a fix.

Once I'm done copying, I won't care as much since I'll reformat the drive and probably use it as a temp-drive for my Dish receiver and at USB 2 speed that will be just fine.

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Stewart Vernon

Discussion Starter · #5 · Sep 16, 2008

P Smith said:
Seems to me it is a controller inside of the enclosure.
If you have access to other PCs at work/friends, I would check it there.
Also, what about open the case and temporary connect the disk directly to MB ?

I suppose it is possible that the firewire circuitry on the enclosure controller is at fault... No real way to test that (I don't actually know anyone else right now with a firewire port) except for going back to the store I bought it. I might do that once I get all my stuff copied so I can see if that works without worrying about losing data if I had to leave it with them.

The drive itself works, as noted before... this drive was in my computer working fine a few days ago and now is working fine in this enclosure via the USB connection. Just nothing via firewire, as if the drive doesn't exist.

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