Computer powers up, but nothing boots up firewire light goes out. solutions????

FireWire booting, as the name implies, is the ability to start up a computer from an internal or external FireWire drive.
FireWire booting is possible on all Macintosh models that have built-in FireWire ports with the exception of the Power Macintosh G3 (Blue & White) and the Power Mac G4 (PCI Graphics) models. You may need to upgrade the computer's firmware before FireWire booting will work. You can download the latest firmware for your computer from the Apple Software Updates Web site at http://www.apple.com/swupdates.
Note: Do not confuse FireWire booting with FireWire target disk mode as described in this article: "FireWire Target Disk Mode".
If you are unsure if your computer has a FireWire port, look for ports that look like those in Figure 1, or look for the FireWire symbol shown in Figure 2.

[img width="68" height="29" src="http://km.support.apple.com/library/APPLE/APPLECARE_ALLGEOS/HT2699/58606_1.gif" alt="" data-hires="true">
Figure 1 FireWire Port

[img width="59" height="56" src="http://km.support.apple.com/library/APPLE/APPLECARE_ALLGEOS/HT2699/58606_2.gif" alt="" data-hires="true">
Figure 2 FireWire Symbol
Follow these steps to start up your computer from an external FireWire drive:

1. Ensure the proper drivers for the FireWire drive are installed in your computer.2. Connect the FireWire drive to your computer and ensure the icon for the disk appears on the Finder desktop.
3. Install the appropriate system software onto the disk.
4. Open the Startup Disk control panel and select the FireWire disk.
5. Restart the computer.The computer should now start up from the FireWire drive. If it does not, make sure you are using third-party drivers that support FireWire booting. Also ensure that the FireWire disk mounts to the Finder desktop and that the system software was properly installed. If it still does not mount, contact the vendor of the device to ensure it can be used as a startup disk.

Hello,

I suggest that you bring it to a technician. It's hard to identify the problem without looking at it. I'm a technician and I can say that I couldn't really tell the reason.

There are a lot of reasons for that.

David

No solution available? This is a short circuit problem, can only be solved by repair

Sounds like it's probably the power supply. The computer takes more power to boot up than to run, so if it can't get enough wattage it can't boot all the way up, and it will shut down and try again.

If you're comfortable opening your computer up, you can test the power supply connectors with a voltmeter or multimeter to verify. A new power supply is typically only $30 or $40.

Hi,
when any computer posts/boots up.
it goes through a sequence of initialising things before booting.
i,ve been repairing computers for around 12-15 years.
1st i,d try removing the ram ( memory ) usually underneath the laptop, behind a screw cover. Or ocassionally under the keyboard.
if 2 sticks of ram are installed, remove the battery. and 1 stick of Ram. put battery on and try to boot. if no joy with that try the other stick of ram. and replace battery-Re-boot.
If this works you have 1 stick of faulty ram or faulty ram slot on motherboard. Failing this. I suspect that the CPU has overheated, and therefore a replacement Processor should solve the problem.

Thankyou for using fixya.

Mike @ compurepair.

Hey guys I've had this happen as well. What worked for me was the reset function. Disconnect the MOTU from the computer. Go to SETUP, turn the knob to FACTORY DEFAULTS, press SELECT, then VALUE. Reconnect MOTU to the computer. I've heard that this doesn't help everyone, but it's helped me. 

Try the link . . . www.laptop-problem-solution.com

For find your best solution.

15

firewire is a lot like usb in the power area if the drive is not getting power i would suspect the firewire port. firewire did not become very popular because of problems like these. You need to go down to a computer parts store and by a firewire card and that should provide enough power and bypass the on-board ports. Try to hook another device up to the firewire ports and see if they work if not install the daughterboard with firewire ports

I agree. The monitor probably blew a capacitor.
Time for a nice new LCD monitor.

This model appears to have a high failure rate in consumer reviews, so it may have physical damage on the disk. Only a re-format of the drive will isolate bad sectors that won't hold data. Try re-mounting your drive after a fresh re-boot of your computer. If the drive came with the manufacture's software to allow it to communicate with your computer, then try removing this software from your system and re-installing it again. This will repair a corrupt driver or I/O program. Try using the drive with a new or different firewire cable. Other users have reported this drive working again after replacing the cable. If you use Mac OS 10.2, you might not be able to initialize or partition the hard drive. This may require you to partition and format the drive on a different computer. From your brief description, it sounds as though you may need to re-format the drive before it will work again.