Firewire drives in Windows

[biohead]

I've bought a 2nd hand, 2008 white macbook for £325, to try out before I took the plunge on a new 13" MBP. Really happy with it so far, and just as impressed with bootcamp performance. Although it's only a 2.1Ghz C2D, I can no longer justify spending 3 times as much on a new MBP until theres a justifiable bump

I have an external firewire drive, which shows up in osx straight off, although it won't show up when I boot up in Windows. I've never used a firewire drive in Windows before, so not sure if I have to do anything special in windows itself.

I'm running Windows 7 Professional x64 (managed to get x64 version of bootcamp 3.0 running, then updated to 3.1. Not sure if this is the cause). Had to create my own install disc from a genuine disc as it wouldn't boot properly, but should have only changed the EFI booting part of the disc.

 

[iBookG4user]

Is the hard drive formatted to Mac OS Extended? (You can check by going to Disk Utility and clicking on the hard drive in the left hand side of the window. It will say "Format" on the bottom of the window and tell you what it is formatted to)

 

[robbieduncan]

Most likely it's nothing to do with it being Firewire and everything to do with the format. If it's HFS+ then Windows can't read it without extra software like MacDrive.

 

[biohead]

Sorry, formatted as FAT32. It also has a USB connection which works fine, I'd just prefer to use the firewire connection IF I can.

 

[iBookG4user]

Do you have all the correct drivers installed?

 

[biohead]

I got the Bootcamp 3.0 installer working, then updated to 3.1, so am I right in presuming it should have installed everything (it didn't return an error).

Could this be anything to do with it running an X64 version when Apple don't "support" it?

 

[balamw]

Have you checked if it shows up in Disk Management? (Start-> Search -> diskmgmt.msc) It may just not have a drive letter assigned to it or may be hiding behind some other device.

Also check device manager (devmgmt.msc) and look for the firewire bits.

B

 

[biohead]

Nothing shows there. I've tried plugging it in whilst Windows is running, and plugging it in before booting and nothing happens.

Nothing shows up in device manager either, just the 1394 controller.

 

[biohead]

I have another Windows laptop, which shows exactly the same symptoms. Works over USB, nothing happens over FW.

The thing is, the drive has an extra FW port on it for daisy chaining, and when I plug my Macbook into it in Target Disk mode, the Windows laptop can see the Macbook fine over FW, but still noting from the drive :S

I'm tempted to say its something to do with the drive now rather than the macbook/other laptop. Or windows needs drivers for specific firewire drives?

 

[thermodynamic]

Thanks to the OP and all who responded - I've had the same issue as well, but both my FW800 drives are formatted HFS+, so I will try out the necessary software to make Mac volumes readable...