Susan Joseph
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« on: April 29, 2006, 03:56:15 PM » |
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I have a Mac G4 with OS 10.4.6. I just bought an iBook with the same OS and tried to download my programs, documents, etc. from the G4 to the laptop using the firewire. The laptop couldn't find my G4 and thus couldn't do the job. Apple had no suggestions and it worked on another G4 so there must be something wrong with my G4. Otherwise it works fine. Where do I start to look to find the problem and is this a symptom of more trouble down the line?
Thanks,
Susan
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Susan Joseph
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« Reply #2 on: April 30, 2006, 01:15:04 PM » |
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Sorry, Martha,
I seem to have responded to the wrong question. Yes we did restart as you suggested, many times to no avail. Any other suggestions? Elizabeth was able to make the laptop work with her computer so it is something wrong with my G4. Any thoughts on what might be wrong?
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Susan
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Chris Waldrip
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« Reply #3 on: May 07, 2006, 12:52:06 AM » |
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What does System Profilier report - does it show a Firewire interface? If you have access to a firewire device then see if its recognized. You could take it to the Apple Store and see if you can have them diagnose the problem. It's possible that the firewire port is damaged. If you can't see the machine when its booted into target disk mode (hold down "T" until flashing FireWire logo appears), then it's probably the FireWire port.
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-Chris Waldrip  |
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Susan Joseph
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« Reply #4 on: May 07, 2006, 12:23:21 PM » |
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Thank you for your suggestion, Chris. You may well be right about the port. Any sense of how expensive and complicated a fix that is to replace or repair the port? If we can work around it, is there reason to pursue fixing it?
Susan
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Chris Waldrip
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« Reply #5 on: May 07, 2006, 12:31:15 PM » |
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What type of "Mac G4" - is it a PowerMac G4 or an iMac G4? In either case the Firewrire port is part of the motherboard. It may be possible for a small speciailized shop to do a component level repair, but it's not going to be cheap in either case.
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Susan Joseph
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« Reply #6 on: May 07, 2006, 12:53:41 PM » |
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I have a desktop G4, tower CPU. Any thoughts on letting it ride? Any reason not to just work around it? Would working on the motherboard potentially lead to other problems not apparent at the moment?
Susan
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Susan Joseph
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« Reply #7 on: May 08, 2006, 12:22:57 PM » |
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Chris,
I just heard from Elizabeth and she said she checked the firewire port when she was talking with Apple and it seems to be OK. Any other suggestions?
Susan
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Jim Gleeson
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« Reply #8 on: August 20, 2006, 02:11:36 PM » |
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Target disk mode does not work still? I imagine this problem has finally got a solution. If not though, you can get the answer here. http://docs....artnum=58583 |
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Susan Joseph
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« Reply #9 on: August 20, 2006, 02:31:29 PM » |
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We never found the problem but just bypassed it. However, I am still interested in what happened. Any thoughts?
Susan
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Jim Gleeson
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« Reply #10 on: August 20, 2006, 03:50:16 PM » |
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A couple of things could be the problem. One of the things I would try if you haven't tried it yet is to set the laptop your moving your files to as the target disk drive. You can also try this:
- reboot the host computer.
- launch Disk Utility on the host computer and see if another (unmounted) hard drive appears - manually mount the drive.
Disk Utility is located in your applications/utilities folder.
Another problem might be with the cables themselves. If you have problem with your firewire cables, buy apple brand. Apparently with some portables they are finicky.
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Susan Joseph
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« Reply #11 on: August 21, 2006, 03:47:25 PM » |
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Thanks so much for your suggestions. We actually tried all that and had no luck. We eventually did it manually and all is working fine now. I was just trying to figure out why it didn't work. Both of my computers looked fine and worked with other computers but not with each other. Very strange. Anyway, I guess it doesn't matter any more because they are both up and running.
Susan
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Jim Gleeson
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« Reply #12 on: August 21, 2006, 03:57:18 PM » |
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When you say manually, I assume you mean you burned the files to a DVD or transferred them to a hard disk and then transferred them over.
That is strange though that your two machines could not recognize one another but other machines could and that they could also recognize other machines. I guess it is another commentary on the unpredictability of computers.
I had similar problems with one of my g3's because it could never go into target disk mode so I had to do some workarounds in that case as well. All in all, the good thing that came out of it is backing up all of my important files. It is amazing to see the statistics out there on how many of us (myself included) do not back up. I guess we are just tempting fate.
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