Firewire issues

littleriver · Jun 24, 2007

No firewire ports when booting to Windows XP on Macbook Pro 10.4.9.

Anyone else?

unused_user_name · Jun 25, 2007

Parallels does not support firewire.

Purplish · Jun 25, 2007

While Parallels does not support Firewire, it might be worth experimenting with setting up your Firewire Drive (or a subset) as a shared Folder. See the Shared Folder Procedure in the manual.

oceanben · Jun 25, 2007

Settin up FireWire drive as Shared folder

I've used a FireWire drive in the past by setting it up as a shared fodler and it worked quite well. My only issue was with ArcGIS which didn't like some of the characters in path names that involved files on the shared drive.

John Howard · Jun 26, 2007

unused_user_name said:
Parallels does not support firewire.

Not true. Using v2.5 build 3214, I installed my LaCie firewire external drive in Parallels Shared Folders (along with my iDisk and my iMac desktop) and can read or write any file on the drive.

As I write this I am watching a .MPEG video in my VM's Windows Media Player. The .MPEG is on my firewire drive.

dkp · Jun 26, 2007

John Howard said:
Not true. Using v2.5 build 3214, I installed my LaCie firewire external drive in Parallels Shared Folders (along with my iDisk and my iMac desktop) and can read or write any file on the drive.

As I write this I am watching a .MPEG video in my VM's Windows Media Player. The .MPEG is on my firewire drive.

Is that because OS X is sharing the attached FireWire device, or because Parallels has presented it to Windows as an attachable device?

John Howard · Jun 26, 2007

dkp said:
Is that because OS X is sharing the attached FireWire device, or because Parallels has presented it to Windows as an attachable device?

Not exactly sure. All I did was edit the VM (with the VM off) then added the firewire drive to the list of shared folders. I guess that means that with my manual intervention, Parallels did present the drive. It wasn't automatic, and I didn't tweak OS X.

dkp · Jun 26, 2007

John Howard said:
Not exactly sure. All I did was edit the VM (with the VM off) then added the firewire drive to the list of shared folders. I guess that means that with my manual intervention, Parallels did present the drive. It wasn't automatic, and I didn't tweak OS X.

It would show up in the Parallels Devices menu, but that's the wrinkle - no FireWire devices ever show up there. The proof is that if Parallels has presented it to Windows then it won't be seen in a Mac Finder window.

John Howard · Jun 26, 2007

dkp said:
It would show up in the Parallels Devices menu, but that's the wrinkle - no FireWire devices ever show up there. The proof is that if Parallels has presented it to Windows then it won't be seen in a Mac Finder window.

Right now, my VM's parallels Shared Folders Window is open, and my Mac Finder window is open. Both display the LaCie firewire drive.

Not only that, I can read and write files to the firewire drive in my Mac Finder window at the same time I am playing the .MPEG from my firewire drive in my VM. I am doing it right now.

Also, I just opened a Word document in my Mac Finder firewire window and am editing it while the VM continues to play my firewire drive's .MPEG. I guess this is what you call multitasking.

littleriver · Jul 14, 2007

Need direct access to firewire port for hardware.

Thanks to all who replied. However, I'm not accessing files on the Firewiredrive, per se. I am running Protools, which is an audio editing application. The Protools software connects to the Protool harware via a Firewire connection. The Protools software is not "seeing" the firewire adapter at all. Someone said thet Firewire support for Parallels Windows XP will be added at some point. Has anyone heard any more about this?

BYW, in the mac partition the Firewire connection works as expected.

Leon

John Howard said:
Right now, my VM's parallels Shared Folders Window is open, and my Mac Finder window is open. Both display the LaCie firewire drive.

Not only that, I can read and write files to the firewire drive in my Mac Finder window at the same time I am playing the .MPEG from my firewire drive in my VM. I am doing it right now.

Also, I just opened a Word document in my Mac Finder firewire window and am editing it while the VM continues to play my firewire drive's .MPEG. I guess this is what you call multitasking.

John Howard · Jul 14, 2007

littleriver said:
Someone said thet Firewire support for Parallels Windows XP will be added at some point. Has anyone heard any more about this?

Firewire support already exists, at least for mass storage (whether intended or not). See thread above.

darkone · Jul 15, 2007

but as pointed out above John, not natively in XP, only via shared folders, that is being controlled by OSX not windows.

John Howard · Jul 16, 2007

darkone said:
but as pointed out above John, not natively in XP, only via shared folders, that is being controlled by OSX not windows.

Yes - that does seem to be dkp's inference. That said, the fact that my firewire drive is fully accessible from within a Parallels/WinXP session means Parallels supports firewire - or at least my particular firewire mass storage device.

Whether that accessibility is "native" to XP or controlled by OSX may be important from a developer or system manager's standpoint, e.g., when determining whether stability, security or other issues are subject to the vagaries of one OS or another. But from an end-user standpoint, that distinction is immaterial, as long as it "just works".

Hugh Watkins · Jul 17, 2007

John Howard said:
Not true. Using v2.5 build 3214, I installed my LaCie firewire external drive in Parallels Shared Folders (along with my iDisk and my iMac desktop) and can read or write any file on the drive.
snip.

my back up clones are on the same type of external HD with a Mac Book Pro and I can run them from there too

Hugh W