If a firewire enclosure was going bad would it...

[OWC Larry]

Bridge boards typically go bad all the way and not half way in terms of drive accessibility. If the drive is of significant issue, might be messing with the FW chain in terms of the bridge being hosing up trying to maintain.

Then - could be bad bridge - but just doesn't sound like how an Oxford bridge typically fails.

Definitely test the FireWire drive on a different Mac before starting surgery on it.