Firewire Failure

[tuftywhite]

:( My Dad has a sick CRT iMac. The firewire is not showing up in the system profiler. I've replaced the internal battery. Switched off, unplugged and waited for 10 minutes. Reset the PRAM (several times). I've pressed the button by the battery, for differing intervals. Still I have no firewire ports.

If I do have to have the logic board replaced it will cost £300. Why is this happening to iMacs (I've read other's posts on other sites)? What are Apple doing about it? I'm going along convincing the world to buy Mac, and I'm now getting it in the neck because the FW isn't working.

Obviously 2 questions here. What can I do? If I can't do anything, why has it gone wrong?

I look forward to your comments.

Cheers,

Tufty

[jeremy.king]

What do you mean by no firewire ports? Are you looking at system profiler screen? Or is it just not mounting?

If so, disconnect ALL firewire devices and see if you can see the ports in the profiler. I had a problem with an external DVD burner that made my firewire ports seemingly disappear. Turns out it was the drive! It works now after 10.3.3, though.

For screenshots see my thread at

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=50282

[tuftywhite]

Thanks for you suggestion. The ports have disappeared from the system profiler. I've been told that the logic board will have to be replaced, but I'd like to know the reason why the ports are failing.

Grrrrr. It's a bit frustrating.

[jeremy.king]

So you tried without any devices connected?

[tuftywhite]

So you tried without any devices connected?

Tried without, with, different FW devices. Every which way.

[jeremy.king]

oh crap :(