Hi, The chances of it being a software problem were pretty much eliminated when you restored your iBook. I've seen this kind of thing (disks not mounting and macs slowing down to crawl) with bad firewire cables. Have you tried another cable? Also, boot into OF (holding down option-command-o-f) and type in the following lines: set-defaults reset-all .... tho I think the cable would be your best bet. filipp This is a good one Filipp, I also tried reset-NVRAM set-defaults reset-all but the problem was still there. Could it be an earlier firmware update? Can I go back to the firmware version that came with my iMac? I saw on the internet that many people suffer from this FireWire Deafness. http://www.powerpage.org/story.lasso?newsID=9584 Regards Hans de Bijl Anyone with a solution???? I had to updat my firmware to install JAGUAR