Firewire 800 to USB-c or USB

[SpringHeeledJack]

I'm endeavouring to use the time productively and on freeing a relatively young external HD from the depths of a wardrobe, I have realised that it has/had a speedy Firewire 800 port, that in the course of the last few years has been usurped by USB-C and even with a conversion dongle in my possession that has 8 ports to USB-c, there is sadly not a space for the Firewire 800. So, next step looked online, but somehow the choice isn't huge and looking at the photos, I'm not super confident that the cable converters are suitable (dodgy descriptions/wrong image etc). Anyone had this issue and resolved it ?

[SpringHeeledJack]

127 views and no-one had the same experience ? Come on chaps! ;-)

[Asturias56]

Reddit has some posts but they seem to think double dongle is your best bet https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/adj0e4/best_option_for_firewire_800_to_usb_c/

also (https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/adj0e4/best_option_for_firewire_800_to_usb_c/)https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/usb-c-to-firewire-800.2061747/

[India Four Two]

Alternatively, liberate the drive from its Firewire case and install it in a USB-C case. Easy to do if it is a SATA drive.

This is something I will have to do if I ever replace my current MBP, which has a Firewire 800 port.

[Capn Bloggs]

If pulling the HD out of the Firewire 800 box can't be done, I wouldn't be running digital video through a converter; I suspect it would be doing a re-encode and you'd lose a generation of quality.

If you have a PC desktop box, I'd buy a Firewire card, install it and use it to copy the firewire drive DV files onto another drive (internal or external). Then you'll have pristine, original DV files to work with when you get around to it.

Or find a mate who has a computer with a FW socket to do the transfer...

[SpringHeeledJack]

Thanks for all the advice. The HD, an WD My Passport 1TB hobby from 10 years ago had 2xFirewire, 1x SATA and 1x misc elongated 'v' port to which I found a cable (glad i kept all those older cable for a rainy day!). This enabled the HD to be read and I transferred old photo files to a more modern (and much smaller) HD. All good so far!

Due to the extremely physical nature of this I fell asleep and had a nap. When I awoke from my slumber, the still attached HD wasn't showing up anymore. I did the usual checks to see what was what, incl Disk Utility (Mac OS). Strangely the HD shows up in Disk Utility, but not on my Laptop's locations section. All that is shown is the total capacity 1TB approx and that the HD is 'uninitialised'. Also when I connect the HD each time a box appears that says it is not readable on this computer.

First Aid runs in a second and says all well, but obviously it isn't. Is the remaining 600GB gone/lost/irretrievable, or is there a chance of simple recovery ? As always any pointers appreciated.

[safetypee]

Jack, had a similar problem some time ago which helpful Ppruners provided a solution.
Had many files backed up on a Seagate hard drive which I wished to access from a new iPad; avoiding lengthy transfers via cloud etc.

A cable link to the iPad was not possible because the hard drive required power; even after the latest Apple software update, direct transfer might only work with a flash drive (Apple advice).

A helpful solution was to connect the hard drive to an adjacent modem via USB - BT modem, and then transfer files via normal Wifi.

The free 'File Explorer' App identifies the hard drive as BT HUB, and the drive as 'usb1'. Thence files are accessed and transferred conventionally.

Had not considered video, but todays experiment with mp4 and wma on the drive play with acceptable quality via Wifi.
Type of USB etc - beyond my knowledge - plug and play (or not).

[Capn Bloggs]

The free 'File Explorer' App identifies the hard drive as BT HUB, and the drive as 'usb1'. Thence files are accessed and transferred conventionally.
Top tip! As a test, I just dropped a folder full of all sorts of stuff onto my (hated) ipad from my computer. Apple must be loosening things up a bit! :}

[jimjim1]

Many years ago I bumped an operating external hard disk drive and ruined it. No files, I can't now recall the windows message, probably "Do you want to format the disk?".

Using free tools, I determined that there was damage right at the start of the disk (master file table?) and that I had no hope of manual recovery. I bought data recovery software CnW Recovery, Data recovery service PCs, Macs, photos, videos (http://www.cnwrecovery.co.uk). It was as I recall £14 for a 1 month license.

Scanned the disk, recovered as far as I could tell, everything. Of course it took a few hours. I was very happy:-)

I think there was a free download that did the scan and gave you a report of what files would be recovered. You had to buy it to get files back.

At the time they offered for a very few hundred pounds a further service if you sent them the disk. I was considering that I might use it if the software did not work. They do not seem to offer that now but still do the software.

There are also now some free options - a quick search reveals - https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva. There will likely be others.

One thing is that if you can, the first thing to do is make an image of the disk and then scan that. I can't recall if CnW offered that option.

Good luck.

[Thirsty]

With hardware data loss (physical damage on the disk), the more you fiddle. the more you lose. Unplug it and send it off to the experts with a clean room. They disassemble the drive, clean the platters, mount them in another drive and then read off all the data, sector by sector, with multiple passes and retries on the damaged area until they cannot get any more back.

Now a few years ago, but full recovery and a $3K bill for a Seagate HDD. Boss said the data was mission critical, and was happy to write the check.

For a software data loss, I have also used Recuva with good results. As long as you do it fast, before the data has been overwritten. In that case, all is lost unless you have a backup, a backup that you can restore - something that a lot of people do not test until it is too late.

Vatican bank IT department motto: Jesus saves, so should you.