I just tried to hook up my motu with my laptop and noticed I needed a six pin firewire, not a four. Apparently the motu can't draw power from a four pin. I did a google search for a four to six adaptor and it looks like I'm out of luck but there are so many resourceful people here I figured someone might have a work around.

You can get a 6-pin FW card that fits into your laptop. I'm not sure what that interface is... it might be PCMCIA or something else.

They're either PCMCIA or PC Express, depending on the age, make and model of the laptop.

You didn't say which Motu your using, but if you check with Motu you will find that as long as the Motu is powered by DC( battery or a/c adapter),the bus power is not used as in the Traveler.
http://www.motu.com/techsupport/technotes/Traveler-FireWire-Power
The 6 pin configuration is to carry power to the device and if powered by DC you can use a 4pin to 6 pin cable.

Thank you, your threads have saved me a great deal of trouble. I have the motu ultralight and a relatively new dell and I need to get it (gulp) dialed in before wednesday. I didn't see anything in the manual about an alternative power source, but then I stopped reading when it said I couldn't use a four pin and I started grinding my teeth and googling. Thank you to all once again.

I've used a 6pin-to-4pin cable with my 828mkII (which is mains powered) to my laptop for over a year with ZERO problems.

Data is carried on the 4pins, the extra 2 pins only carry power and if you've got the firewire device plugged into the wall you can just ignore them.