External hard drives that are formatted for Macs have a firewire cable included in the equipment bag, and hard drives formatted for PCs have a USB cable included. However, a question came up last night from a borrower with a MacBook laptop that did not have a firewire port. I asked the Helpdesk for advice and here is their response:
“There’s a (relatively) small subset of users on campus who will have aluminum MacBooks with no firewire port on them, as it is a product Apple sold for a short time between Fall 2008 and Spring 2009. If a student wants to check out a harddrive and is using one of these computers, feel free to either loan them a usb cable from the Circ desk or have them come by the Helpdesk for one.”
Please refer this issue to a supervisor if it comes up — I expect it will be a rare occurrence — but it’s good to know that the Helpdesk is happy to loan a USB cable to the borrower if needed.