MacBook Pro – FireWire Ports Connector Type on Early 2011 Models

Nothing shipping immediately, however Sonnet did announce a Thunderbolt ExpressCard adapter that you could pair with a Firewire ExpressCard to give yourself some Firewire capabilities. Their site claims it will start to ship by December 14, 2011. At one point a direct Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter was announced, but I can't find any concrete info on it, so I wouldn't count on it appearing any time soon.

Overall Thunderbolt support from anyone other than Apple has been pretty slow to take off. There have been some suggestions that Intel was slow releasing final specs for manufacturers and/or getting production hardware out the door. I've also read that some manufacturers may be waiting for the 2nd generation of cheaper Thunderbolt chips to ship sometime in 2012. Lots of promise in the technology, and I think it will take off sooner or later, but it's still in the early stages unfortunately.

The MagSafe board is a very easy repair for someone who has patience and a small amount of training fixing any computer at all. The MacBook Pro aren't as fidgety to repair as the iMac and MacBook Air (where I would say you should be a skilled technician with official training materials available to work on them reliably).

You're looking to replace this with a handful of screws turned.

Go to iFixit.com and look up the repair guide and parts list for the DC in board and you will know if you have the skills to find the right part, the right tools and the right manual to undertake this work. Otherwise, pay a local technician to do the job/source the parts/give you what they feel is a good guarantee. As for the adapter, buy a new or used one on the aftermarket or from Apple. When the cord is crushed and frayed, it is designed to fail in a way that won't cause a fire hazard. I wouldn't mess with that end of things or with repairing the transformer itself.