External PCI Enclosure?

[HeavyTakeMusic]

I have a firewire card that I NEED to use on a laptop. I havent found any firewire to usb adaptors so I was wondering if there's a way to turn a PCI firewire card into an external type enclosure. Kind of like turning a hard drive into an external one. Is this possible?

 

[tiraides]

There are notebook Firewire adapters available. Do you need PCMCIA or ExpressCard?

 

[plugwash]

I have a firewire card that I NEED to use on a laptop. I havent found any firewire to usb adaptors so I was wondering if there's a way to turn a PCI firewire card into an external type enclosure. Kind of like turning a hard drive into an external one. Is this possible?

Does your laptop have cardbus (the 32-bit variant of PCMCIA), expresscard or thunderbolt? If so then there are firewire adapters available.

If it doesn't have any of those interfaces then i'm afraid your only reasonable option is to get a different laptop.

You can get external PCI enclosures but they are frightfully expensive and they don't connect over USB so they don't help you.

 

[fantabulous]

You can get external PCI enclosures but they are frightfully expensive and they don't connect over USB so they don't help you.

IIRC, they're "buy another laptop with firewire built in" frightfully expensive.