Topic: Do Firewire > USB adapters work?

[jnorman34]

i bought an Echo Audiofire 4 firewire interface to use with a macbook.  wound up selling the macbook and getting a new thinkpad.  the ibm has 4-pin firewire, but it is on the front of the laptop and not too convenient (afraid i will break it off or something).  i was thinking of trying one of the 6-pin firewire to USB adapters to plug the echo unit into a USB port on the IBM.  do those things work okay?  thanks.

[jnorman34]

oh yeah - an attendant question on this:  instead of installing the firewire drivers, if i try to use a FW>USB adapter, do i need to install some sort of USB drivers to make this work?  and, will this work on a vista machine, or do i need to stick with XP?  thanks.

[TNJazz]

To my knowledge there's no such thing.  USB and firewire are two entirely different protocols.

[flipp]

I've looked a couple of times in various spots for USB>Firewire adapters and have never found one. What I did find is most sites combined all the USB adapters and Firewire adapters in the same category though none of them had an adapter that would change one format to the other.

Your best bet may be getting a PCMCIA card that has both USB and Firewire ports.
Something like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16839130009 but that seems like overkill since you say the ThinkPad already has a Firewire port. If you get a card, it's just spending money for the convenience of plugging in somewhere other than the built-in port.

[sygdwm]

To my knowledge there's no such thing.  USB and firewire are two entirely different protocols.