Topic: Hot plugging non-bus powered interfaces

[super-phat-al]

Wondering if anyone can shine some light on this question of mine.  I have a m-audio interface that im running with a 4-pin firewire connection.  It says strictly that i should not hot plug bus powered firewire devices, but it also doesn't clearly state i can hot power 4 pin firewire.  i would like to run in the interface any my external harddrive at the sametime, but only have one 4 pin firewire in on my laptop.  any ideas?  i don't want to throw the money on the usb cable for the hard drive...im broke

[ashevillain]

I hotswapped my Firewire Audiophile....oops. They didn't write the instructions clear enough for me and I thought I fried either the FA or the firewire port because neither worked after that. Turns out that I just had to reset the firewire port and it worked. M-Audio claims hotswapping can damage the device and/or the port...this instance scared me into not hotswapping...and it was kind of a pain to reset the firewire. If I were you I'd either get a firewire hub, a firewire expansion card, or just turn the computer off while swapping devices....I wouldn't take the chance because it could cost you more $$ in the long run.