Sometimes when I boot up my PowerBook G4, the external Firewire drives do not show up.
When that happens, you are supposed to unplug everything and leave the power off for five minutes and then boot everything back up.
That didn't work this time.
So I removed the wire connection to my external drives, and plugged in my iPod. It showed up.
Then I disconnected the iPod and plugged in the external Firewire drives.
They showed up.
So the tech tip for the day is, buy an iPod. ;-)