Firewire External Harddisk

[René L. Reingard]

Hi
It is high time for me to install an external harddrive for backup  
security.
The drive is only running by Firewire. The machine has an 1394 - 4 Pin -  
Firewire - Connection.
Unfortunately i do not know anything about how to deal with Firewire and  
its standards.
I do run the external drive with own power supply. So far the drive does  
not get detected automatically by Hoary.
What to check? What to do?
Thank you for help.
René