Wd Ext Drives and X61T 1394 port - BEWARE

[Alltweed]

The cable that WD ships with their ext hd drives(at least passport) connect only to a 6 pin 1394 port on PC and you must use their cables so they say. Lenovo(apparently) decided to be different and go with a 4 pin port. Therefore, unless you add another expense of a cardbus port card, you cannot use 1394 ext drives!!!The drive will not power up! I know because I bought a 3rd party cable 800-400(4pin) and nada - no power.

WOW

Blown away by both parties. WD's reply is well you have the USB port to use. Ah - yeah - I just paid to get the 1394 port. And whats up Lenovo - are they trying to sell more lenovo branded ext drives or was the 1394 an after thought to try and compete where other manuf have much better multi port options default.

And finally - as a big FYI

Any one considering buying an ext hd pre formatted for mac and plans to reformat for windows - beware...This process requires an extended reformat(the right way to do it) vs quick format...And will take an hour or more for a 500gig drive. I have read many posts in respected forums where people again and again have mentioned that this process is a no brainer..Takes 2 minutes to format for windows...I am told (WD Support) that if you choose the quick format option you will have corruption problems down the road...you have been warned. I checked my usb drivers and system recognizes 20 so not sure what dealio is...Slow on both t60 and x61t

[Marin85]

Thanks for the information! By coincidence I was about to buy and (pay extra for) an external Seagate drive for Mac because of the firewire (I believe also 6-pin)... That would have been a hit But I decided to go for an external WD for PC and without firewire (but it turned out to require external power source, but that´s another story...)

Thanks again

Marin

[bill bolton]

Lenovo(apparently) decided to be different and go with a 4 pin port.

The four pin Firewire port has been around on a wide range of devices for a long time, being descended from the Sony i.Link work, and has been part of Firewire since the publication of the IEEE 1394a-2000 standard.

If you want to use Firewire for connectivity, its up to you to come to terms with understanding the somewhat convoluted set of connection options that apply.

Cheers,

Bill B.

[Alltweed]

Well, I just know neither company is looking out for the the consumer. I would expect more of two heavy weights.,And my main contention is that they could have simply added these details in their requirements page on their website!!! RIGHT? Ex: Out 800/400 ext drives only support our cables, And furthermore, we only connect to 6 pin ports and not 4 pin. Done. How hard is that. And your point only makes it even more obvious they could have done that if 4pin is a major 1394 consumer solution.

So, yes its blatant greed and stupidity.

More rant

This entire issue just happen to me again. I purchased the Siig 1394a 2 port cardbus for my x61T to support these wd 1394 ext drives . Now only after a 2nd review after I had ordered my card did I learn I have to have a power adaptor for the card...Ok - no problem. I;ll just go to siigs product page and review requirements.

In fine print, I almost missed it I see something about needing a power supply. Says 12v and 1MA..I thought I was being smart Ah - I'll make sure whatever I buy matches exactly to these specs. Long story short. the adaptor connector on the power adaptor I bought does not fit into the cards power port.

You see. Siig wanted to be different. they even listed this special power adaptor design on their features list. They had this awesome design thing that was going to make it so cool to use, but unfortunately, engineering forgot to tell marketing that you can only use one adaptor to fit it...

So, my point...Another chance for the manuf to tell the consumer what they need to make the product work My God. You say vendors cant; be worrying about adaptors..Oh really??? Even when the product will not work without an adaptor. This now falls into the category of mission critical. Would it have been too much to tell the customer on the product specs page a very special adaptor is needed to fit our cool design (buy here) instead of "card requires use of optional 12v adaptor".

Freakin Amazing.

[bill bolton]

• * if you want straightforward device connections, use USB
  
  * if you want to use Firewire, learn to read the fine print

Cheers,

Bill B.

[loyukfai]

WDC advertises an "Optional Power Booster Cable" for this product.

Basically, it's a USB cable with 2 type-A connectors.

However, it's advertised for USB conncetion and I'm not sure if it works in your case (data through IEEE1394, power through USB...?) IIRC the manual mentions a feature to utilize both connections but that's for Mac only. Strange things may happen if you connect simultaneously both the USB and IEEE1394 to a PC.

http://store.westerndigital.com/store/w ... .106596600

http://www.westerndigital.com/global/im ... 029RNN.jpg

[fongj]

If you took the step to get Firewire on your laptop, you should have also figured out the difference between 4-pin and 6-pin. Thinkpads never have 6-pin firewire (that I know of) -- my A31p also had 4-pin. It means I have to buy 4-pin to 6-pin firewire cables, and make sure any firewire drives I want to use portable have the option for external power (e.g. USB -> DC).