Quantum Maxtor Serial Adapter

Though I suspected that I already knew the answer to your question about a source for drivers for the Maxtor 1394 CardBus Adapter, I wanted to research this in order to be able to provide PROOF that my answer is correct. As a result, I've now spent more than two hours researching this issue for you...

As it turns out, the drivers you have requested are actually EMBEDDED within Windows itself, and have been ever since the release of Windows 98 Second Edition. They are listed within Windows as "OHCI 1394" drivers, which is another designation for FireWire / IEEE1394 device drivers. According to the Seagate / Maxtor Knowledge Base, there are NO downloadable drivers for the Maxtor 1394 Cardbus Adapter, and none have ever existed. The software originally provided on the CD in the retail package for the Maxtor 1394 Cardbus Adapter did NOT include drivers, which I'll explain in more detail later...

As a general rule, when installing the Maxtor 1394 CardBus Adapter into a system for the first time, you insert the PCMCIA card into the Type II slot while Windows is loaded, NOT while the system is shut down; after inserting the card into an empty Type II CardBus slot, you should then hear a tone indicating that Windows has detected a device in the slot. The Add New Hardware Wizard should then load, and you might be prompted to insert your Windows CD into your optical drive, though this should NOT be necessary if you've previously installed any other FireWire devices on the same system.

You can download the Installation Guide (in .PDF file format) for the Maxtor 1394 CardBus Adapter from either of the following links:

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/maxto...

tallation_guides/1394_cardbus_installation_guide.pdf

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/media/i3d/0...

041641.pdf

Simply right-click one of those links, and choose the "Save As..." option to download and save the Installation Guide to your Desktop, or to another folder where you can find it easily...

The following links should help you to learn more; the first link explains the reason why drivers are NOT available for download for the Maxtor 1394 CardBus Adapter:

http://seagate.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/seag...

The next link describes a known problem (and the solution) when the Maxtor 1394 CardBus Adapter is installed on some IBM Thinkpad laptops:

http://seagate.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/seag...

The next link describes the hardware and software requirements for installing the Maxtor 1394 CardBus Adapter:

http://seagate.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/seag...

As I've previously mentioned, the original software (on the CD-ROM) provided with the Maxtor 1394 Cardbus Adapter were the "MaxTools" utilities (which I have NOT been able to locate for download); they were NOT actual hardware drivers for a Windows OS...

Well, I hope this solves the mystery of the "missing" FireWire drivers; though I don't recall ever needing to load third-party drivers for ANY FireWire devices I've installed in a Windows system, I wanted to be able to PROVE to you (and to anyone else who reads this in the future) that the drivers are already embedded within Windows, and that they are NOT available for download. As long as you use a supported version of Windows (all versions beginning with the release of Windows 98 Second Edition), you already have the drivers available, though Windows will probably need to extract them from the Windows CD, if they haven't been loaded onto the system previously.

Good luck with this; let us know if you have any problems installing your FireWire card. I don't think that is likely to happen, as long as you follow the steps in the Installation Guide. You might want to create printouts of those Seagate Knowledge Base pages (or copy them to your hard drive, or at the least, bookmark the individual links) for future reference.