trying to get USB/Firewire card to work on 5500

[billtchr]

I've got a USB/Firewire CD writer I am trying to get to work with the 5500. I have a Belkin F5U008 USB/Firewire PCI card in the PCI slot. I am running 9.1 (which apparently has the Firewire extensions built-in) and installed the USB Support 1.4.1 from Apple, and the have the Toast OS9 extensions in there as well.

Tried the whole set up on Firewire...nothing. Tried it again with USB...nothing. System Profiler sees the card, calling it only pci-bridge, but neither System Profiler nor Toast can see the drive itself.

Am I missing something? Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[equill]

There are a couple, at least, of possibilities for you to explore. First, the card is from Belkin, which has not been universally reported as a satisfying experience.

Second is that, before Toast 5.0.2 (or thereabouts) Toast's and Apple's software for control of USB or FireWire devices spent more time in arm-wrestling than in doing useful work. Fix 1 is to disable the Toast extensions in Extensions Manager, either temporarily and then reboot, and Fix 2 is to set up a completely separate extensions set called whatever pleases you, without the Toast extensions, and then reboot. You have then the choice to disable the Toast crumbs at startup (or restart) by holding down spacebar until the option to change extension set appears.

de

 

[alk]

In the 5500, 6500, and TAM, Apple somehow managed to break the ability of dual-function PCI cards to ... function. The design is incompatible with PCI bridge chips. As a consequence, all dual-function cards (USB/FireWire, for instance) do not work without special software.

I don't know about Belkin, but Orange Micro and Sonnet both released Open Firmware patches that enable the use of their own combo USB/FireWire cards. If you can't get your card working after applying one of their patches, you might consider trading it in for a Sonnet Tango.

For what it's worth, Sonnet has a world class support department.

Peace,

Drew

 

[billtchr]

Thank you for the ideas...I will try them out and see what happens. On continuing my research after I posted, I did run across the problem with the 55/6500s and TAM, and wonder if finding another card might not be the best answer...the Belkin was originally in my G3, where it worked fine; the bug explains why it isn't here...

Thanks!