[Maced] external HD and firewire- possible reason

[paula_thomas at bigpond.com]

Hi all,
 can't guarantee this but...last year we bought 6 Maxtor 200GB external HD and 3 of the firewire ports blew but USB fine. also occurred with a LaCie Lego brick. Bought 6 new Sony Mini cams and 2 of them had the dv  port blow. Spoke to Video Pro and they said it was common knowledge that you must have the camera powered off when you connect the firewire /dv download lead as there can be a surge from the computer to the camera that blows the port but this is controlled by the camera power on button. Asked if this could be the solution to our HD problem and he said it may be similar. Kids have since been connecting/ disconnecing external HD and cameras while they are powered off and the other 4 cameras and 3 HD drives have all been fine for the last 12 months. The other drives are also still running perfectly on USB. I also changed to Panasonic cameras that also have a mini firewire as well as a mini dv port in case it happened again.


 maybe this is the reason...maybe not ...but  maybe a habit worth trying ...
 cheers Paula