You've learned the lesson. Now try a powered enclosure.
Or better yet, one that you don't build yourself.
Bob
i have plugged 2 bus powered laptop drives (cased in a mobile enclosure) in to my titanium g4 powerbook (dual boot) and both times smoke has come out of the enclosure. the first time my hard drive was blown and i had to replace it. the second time using the same type of enclosure smoke came out again but the drive was able to be reformatted and i have been told it is still working. i now have a different mobile enclosure but am hesitant to plug it in to my powerebook in case it happens again.
someone told me there was an issue with the firewire ports on older powerbooks and powemacs sending too much voltage and that this may be causing the problem. does anyone else know of any such problems as i will send it back to mac (under apple care) but want to know as much info as possible as they have denied certain problems to me in the past when i have experienced them myself. thanks in advance.

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