[X4U] Firewire drives won't mount

[Michael Elliott]

I'm running 10.4.2 and have 2 external firewire drive cases. I've  
always disonnected them between OS updates as recommended, and should  
also say that I've had this trouble before...going back long before  
any of the 10.3.x updates.

I had a computer crash, and when I rebooted, I could no longer access  
my external drives from my iMac G4.  The drives are not visible in  
Disk Utility.  Unplugging, replugging, turning power off/on doesn't  
seem to do anything.  The FW ports on my iMac are good...iSight  
functions without a problem on either, and I have disconnected the  
iSight during all of these permutations to eliminate what is  
reportedly a persnickety peripheral.

However, when I connect the drives to the firewire port on my iBook,  
the drives mount perfectly.  I ran Disk Utility on both of them, and  
they checked out fine. I was able to mount/unmount/eject the drives  
without difficulty.  However, they still won't show up on my iMac.

Any suggestions?

Michael