Just now did I see that thread, which is is closed.

Beware that the reference here is for firewire-800, which not all 1394 interfaces will take:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=773049&postcount=7

IMHO, except if you do have a firewire 800 interface, you should get this Kramer for firewire-400:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/431507-REG/Comprehensive_Kramer_PT_1FW_PT1FW_Spark_Guard_Pro_DV.html

Ironically, soon after reading these firewire threads, I turn on my Firewire external drive this morning and it was not recognized. Tried a couple of computers - no go. Tried a different firewire case and it was fine, so the computer port is okay. I swapped out the drive into another case and all was good, so it looks like the firewire port on that particular case is gone. Confirmed when I hooked it up via USB and it still works.

I didn't do any sort of hot-plugging. Computer on first, then external case. How widespread is this problem? I can't believe it's so easy to blow out firewire ports. What a pain!