firewire wont regonise my external hard drives

[dude]

why wont my firewire recognise my external HD. all the
drivers are installed and it says that the device is
working...
i tried two different external HD and it wont recognise
either. in network connections i have the 1394 connection
1394 net adapter and says its enabled.

im stumpped

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

Are the drives partitioned, formatted and assigned drive letters?

Right click on My Computer, select Manage. On the following screen, select
Disk Management. They should appear on the right hand side of the screen.
What does it say about them?

No version of Windows can 'see' an unformatted drive.

 

[dude]

the drives are partitioned and formated. i was using them
before on a usb port, and switched them to firewire, to a
new firewire usb pci card?

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

You still may have to assign them new drive letters. You didn't say whether
Disk Management was able to 'see' them or not.

 

[dude]

it doesnt see the external drives in disk management..
how do i assign them a letter when it doesnt see any
external HD in disc management.
how do i find out if my mother board supports firewire or
does that not matter if i have xp installed

thanks

 

[Cari \(MS MVP\)]

Right dick on My Computer and select Properties. From the Hardware Tab,
select Device Manager.

It should be under IEEE 1394 Bus Host Controllers.

 

[dude]

yep its under there in device manager and it says
ieee 1394 bus host controllers then under that it says
texas instruments ohci compliant ieee 1394 host
controllers and when i click on that and pick properties
it says the devicce is working properly. the drivers are
installed.
why doesnt it see my xternal hard drives that are
connected to the firewire.
it just doesnt see any device that i connect to the
firewire. i tried another external HD , and the firewire
doesnt see it..

thanks