firewire

[jennifer34]

just a quick question... i just got a new iomega 120gb external hard drive that says it runs on OS X with firewire 2.7 support. how can i tell which version of firewire i have? this is a probably a dumb question, but any help is appreciated. i'm running OS 10.1 now (on a g4), but am about to upgrade to 10.2 (yes, i know i'm behind the curve). does anyone know what version of firewire comes with 10.1 or 10.2? or is it something i need to download or purchase separately? although i must have some version of it b/c my scanner is connected via firewire. i ask because when i launched my external hard drive, it tried to start up under classic, instead of just launching under OS X. i apologize if this posting is confusing, but i'm confused, so that's why it sounds that way!
again, any input is greatly appreciated. thanks-

 

[mms]

I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about but for starters you could try looking at System Profiler. Apple Menu --> About this Mac --> More Info... is how to get to it on Panther. I don't remember what it was in previous versions. You can also find it under Applications --> Utilities --> System Profiler.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Once in System Profiler, select Extensions from the Software bit on the left hand side. Scroll down the menu of extensions till you find AppleFWOHCI, select it and read the info from the bottom panel.

Why just 10.2? Why not 10.3?

Regardless, you will notice a big difference. Be sure to download the most recent updater from Apple.

 

[MisterMe]

just a quick question... i just got a new iomega 120gb external hard drive that says it runs on OS X with firewire 2.7 support. how can i tell which version of firewire i have? this is a probably a dumb question, but any help is appreciated. i'm running OS 10.1 now (on a g4), but am about to upgrade to 10.2 (yes, i know i'm behind the curve). does anyone know what version of firewire comes with 10.1 or 10.2? or is it something i need to download or purchase separately? although i must have some version of it b/c my scanner is connected via firewire. i ask because when i launched my external hard drive, it tried to start up under classic, instead of just launching under OS X. i apologize if this posting is confusing, but i'm confused, so that's why it sounds that way!
again, any input is greatly appreciated. thanks-

There are two major versions of FireWire, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800. They are distinguished by their plugs. If you can plug your FireWire hard drive into your Mac, it should work. Your scanner should have no effect. MacOS X 10.3 supports both FW400 and FW800. FireWire 800 was incorporated into Mac hardware in January 2003 when Apple revised the PowerMac G4 MDD. Therefore the latter versions of MacOS X 10.2 certainly support FW800, but the earlier versions may not. That being the case, if your version of MacOS X is more than two years old, then you may need to update.

Quite frankly, I have no idea what you mean by "launched my external hard drive ..." You launch applications, not storage devices. I gather that an icon for your FireWire drive appeared on your Desktop. I cannot account for the fact that Classic started up. My best guess is that maybe there is a script on the drive designed to install a driver for MacOS 9.