10.4.4 corrupts external Firewire drives

I had now twice corruption with external firewire drives after a hardreset (not normal shutdown, but holding the powerbutton until the mac turns off).
The first time I was forced to do this, because the whole Mac froze after a program run (not from Apple). At that time I had two external FW harddisks. One older 200GB Maxtor and one newer 250GB Maxtor, the newer one was backup, the old one master.
Because at that time I thought the old harddisk might be bad, I bought another 250GB Maxtor same as the backup drive and synced (with rsync on the terminal) all data there. I tried to recover data before that, but Disk Utility completly failed, it just ejected the disk, same with DiskWarrior.
Now, after another hard reset (Suddenly all programs locked up, and I couldn't do anything else) I had two corrupted. both the 250GB backup and the 250GB new master.
Again Disk Utility failed, although it didn't eject the disk. DiskWarrior also failed to do anything. After I tried to repair it diskwarriro said it had an error. Then I could repair it with Disk Utility, but the luck was short. soon after I couldn't read some files, and then again I had the same errors on both disks.
Right now I sync all my data from my master disk to the old 200GB Maxtor (which I reformated in between).
I am just really scared if all hard resets will corrupt my external FW harddisks. I rely on them as I only have 40GB internal data. And what good does a backup do, if it also gets corrupted.
Anybody with similar problems?
Mac Mini Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Yes, I have seen this twice now. It has happened to two of my external VFAT drives when used on the firewire port. The drives are in BYTECC firewire/usb chassis that use this Prolific device: 067b:3507 Prolific Technology, Inc.
The drives mount fine once, but on dismount OS X trashes the VFAT boot sector. The drive will not remount on OS X after this happens. I have one mounted now in Linux, apparently on the backup copy of the partition table. The primary is completely blown away.
The signature looks like this:
from sector offset 0 on the disk:
0x00000000 45 52 02 00 1d 38 63 80 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
and all zeros down to 0x200.
At 0x00000230 the ASCII string "Applepartitionmap" pops up.
I don't see why this would be a vendor's driver problem.
It's just another silly OS X firewire trick. Firewire has been a nightmare on my iMac G5, and it just keeps getting better.
This happened once at 10.4.4 and again at 10.4.5, so falling back probably won't be worth it...
Apple, have you tried regression testing the firewire disk drives? It's really uncool to detroy our data like this.
There is no valid reason to write to any drive's partition table on exit unless specifically told to do so by me via the disk utility, so stop it already.
iMac G5 20 Mac OS X (10.4)

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Files corrupted when written to external Firewire drive

I recently discovered that files transferred from my internal ATA drives to my external Firewire drives have been getting corrupted.
The corruption is most noticable in Quicktime movies where I can see individual video frames with pixelated blocks of color and short noise bursts in the audio. My concern, however, is that it is happening to any file type and the corruption may not be noticed until it is too late.
I read a few posts from the end of last year that stated the Firewire ports of the B & W G3s have problems. The general solution appeared to be the use a dedicated PCI card.
Here are my questions:
(1) Is there a formal aritcle discussing this problem? (I didn't find one)
(2) Copying files is a VERY basic function of an operating system. Shouldn't there be some kind of error generated if a copied file doesn't match the source? (like a checksum error).
(3) If a PCI Firewire card is the answer, is there anything to watch out for when selecting one?
(4) I'd like a better way to compare souce and destination files after a copy. What application can I use to do a low-level comparison of two files?
Thanks,
John

John,
My reference to RAM was by way of example. Another example of error opportunities is in rebuilding the desktop. I have had files lost because of the desktop changing when the removable media or external hard drive is changed to a computer with a different OS. Rebuilding the desktop restored the files.
The guys that wrote Disk Warrior could give the brutal full on why files appear, disappear and get corrupted. I choose to not trust any one medium so I backup my backups. Sometimes a reliable routine is better than an explaination.
No one has responded to my inquiry about why jpeg files are corrupted when copied from the B&W to a PC zip disk but not to an external HDD. I should try that with a PC formatted HDD. The odd thing is that quicktime will read the corrupted file but jpegview will not. Or the otherway around. I have forgotten the details because I gave up on trying to get an answer.
I would be interested in reading more about file transfers during the process of burning a CD and how buffer underun technology works. As you said, the answer may be so detailed that the explanation wouldnot be understandable without becoming a text book!
Jim

Best Way to Protect Data on External Firewire Drives?

I have a number of external firewire drives on my IMac and like many others have experienced data loss due to various things.
What I've just started to do is use certain of these drives, external USB drives too, just for backup, not to work on. I put the video work on there each day and then dump the drive in the Trash, turning it off, so that their files can't be corrupted.
With my other firewire drives I do the same: dump in the trash and turn the drives off. I don't unplug the firewire cables, just dump the drives in the trashcan and turn them off. When I want to use a particular drive I turn it on and it comes up on the desktop.
I have at times restarted and then powered the external drives on.
My question is: which is the safest way to do this? is it okay to trash a drive, turn it off and then switch it back on when needed?
Thanks so much for any help!

I have been doing what you describe for years now, and have never experienced a problem. When the drive is not needed for a while, I eject it and power it off. You can also disconnect it from the Mac and unplug the drive physically, if you want extra "protection" against, say, a power surge or some other malfunction that might damage the powered off (but still connected) drive, but I would think those types of events are very highly unlikely.
People might debate whether the risk of wearing out the firewire or USB ports from repeatedly inserting and removing the cables is greater than the risk of some damage when connected to the Mac but powered off. Either one is infinitesimally small, I believe, and neither has probably been accurately measured.

Blue screen of death when La Cie external firewire drive connected

I tested a LaCie external firewire drive on my iMac and it worked fine. I packed it up well and posted it to a friend who gets the blue screen of death when the LaCie is connected to her iMac. She's not even trying to boot from it.
My iMac is 9.1 and hers is 8.1. We are both running Snow Leopard. Was there some problem once upon a time with chipsets or am I mis-remembering?
TIA

Create an ISO (Encore) or folder on your hard drive (Encore or Premiere Elements) and then use the FREE http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download to write files or folders or ISO to disc for DVD or BluRay (send the author a PayPal donation if you like his program)
Imgburn will read the ACTUAL disc brand from the disc, which is not always the same as the box label (Memorex is notorious for buying "anything" and putting it inside a Memorex box)
When you write to disc with Imgburn, use the SLOWEST possible speed setting, so your burner has the best chance to create "good, well formed" laser burn holes... since no player is required to read a burned disc, having a "good" one from a high quality blank will help

External Firewire Drive Ceases to be Detected After DVD Drive Installation

About a week ago, I replaced the original Pioneer DVR-103 drive in my Quicksilver 800 Mhz/dual G4 with a Pioneer DVR-115 to work with newer, faster media. After restarting the machine, I got an alert that told me my 80Gb Maxtor external firewire drive wouldn't initialize. The only real option it gives me is to reformat, thus losing valuable data. That's a non-starter. I've tried restarting the machine with the new DVR unplugged, but I get the same result. I've zapped the Pram, thinking it was a dirty pram, but no go. I've reset the nvram to default, using the command line, but no luck. The odd thing is that applications (like iTunes) continue to access the music files stored on it. I need this drive. Seagate support has been worthless. Any ideas?

About a week ago, I replaced the original Pioneer DVR-103 drive in my Quicksilver 800 Mhz/dual G4 with a Pioneer DVR-115 to work with newer, faster media. After restarting the machine, I got an alert that told me my 80Gb Maxtor external firewire drive wouldn't initialize. The only real option it gives me is to reformat, thus losing valuable data. That's a non-starter. I've tried restarting the machine with the new DVR unplugged, but I get the same result. I've zapped the Pram, thinking it was a dirty pram, but no go. I've reset the nvram to default, using the command line, but no luck. The odd thing is that applications (like iTunes) continue to access the music files stored on it. I need this drive. Seagate support has been worthless. Any ideas?

Is it possible to boot a G4 (pci graphics) from an external firewire drive?

I have a Lacie 250 gig bootable external firewire drive which is recognized on my Power PC G4 400 but I cannot get it to boot from this drive. The procedure works fine on my ibook... I looked into a possible firmware update but the apple site says no update is necessary for the G4 400/pci graphics...
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There sure are some radically contradictory posts here! (This isn't typical, at least in this section of the Discussions, RMx2.)
Can anyone who has posted here (or might join in here) actually boot from a hard drive connected via USB? I just tested this with OS X and I can't. For some time now, the Discussions have been riddled with posts, whether 100% accurate or inaccurate, that Macs don't boot from USB drives, despite the seemingly conflicting info in the article that Don kindly referenced. (John Huber: Don't eat your words just yet, John!)
Here's my personal experience, for what it's worth... I have a rev.2 B&W G3 which recognizes, reads, and writes to drives via USB, but refuses to boot from them (I tested with OS X 10.3 and 10.4). I also have a QS 2002 G4 that yields the same results. The QS G4 will, however, boot from these drives via FW. I used a WiebeTech ComboDock for testing this with both USB and FW. I tested with two different hard drives, both of which are known to have stable, working versions of OS X on them.
My G3 running OS X 10.3.9 sees the USB-connected drives in the Startup Disk Preference Pane, but when I click to Restart after selecting the USB system folder there, I get a beachball (haven't seen that in awhile...) and have to Force Quit System Preferences. Console tells me that that it could not get open firmware information or set open firmware information, and that it can't touch or set System/Library/CoreServices/BootX, returning Error 1 running bless.
On the QS running Tiger, the USB OSs don't even appear in the Startup Disk Pane of Sys Prefs. I can see the USB drive(s) using the Startup Manager, but selecting them and restarting results in a hung startup to a spinning cog with a prohibitory sign on the screen...
I haven't tried playing around with open firmware NVRAM settings (and don't intend to, except perhaps for trying an NVRAM reset), nor have I attempted to boot to OS 9, reset the startup disk there, and attempt the boot again to the USB device in OS X and in OS 9, which I may try later on when I have a bit of time...
Gary
Message was edited by: Majordadusma

External Firewire drive does not mount on desktop now.

Greetings everyone.
G5 dual, 4.6GB ram, OSX 10.4.10, external firewire drive, formerly worked fine, now is invisible.
Not the drive. New purchase, worked fine until a restart. Not the cable. Power is getting from the G5 to the firewire drive. Not the port. I also have a firewire card instlaled so I have three ports to connect it to (and two on the FW drive). No combination works. Not the computer, the FW drive also fails to appear on an iBook. Not the OS. I did a clean install to make sure.
I'm not a newbie. I know what I'm doing. Until now! DiskWarrior, TechTool Pro, Drive Genius and Apple's Disk Utility cannot see the drive.
The FW drive is a Powerbook internal HD inserted into a case, purchased seperately.
At my wits' end. Can anyone help please.

I am suddenly having this EXACT problem. I have two Firelite firewire drives (one 60G and one 80G) that are suddenly refusing to mount on my older dual 1.25GHz G4 tower. They are also suddenly refusing to mount on my non-intel iMac. They will both mount painlessly on my new Intel MacBook Pro, but that's not much use, since the point of the firewire drives is to transfer files between these computers. I'm updating all of them to 10.4.10 to see if that's the issue...

HELP! - Error 1309 - Can't copy file over 10gig to External firewire drive.

I know this is more of a hardware issue but I know that only other final cut users would be copying single files over 10gigs.
I have a G5 that I use for video production. Video Files can be large and to back them up I got an external hard drive ( Maxtor 1-touch 200gig) When I try to copy a file on to it that is 10gigs it give me a 1309 error. I have found that other people have had trouble copying files over 2gigs over to an external firewire drive. But I haven't found any answers. Can anyone offer any advice on how to solve this?
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If you don't want to format it for the mac, you are limited to file sizes under 2gb.
Another alternative is to hook a firewire drive to your Mac and then share it with your windows machines (the program SHAREPOINTS is useful for this).
The drive can then be formatted Mac OS Extended and, once shared, the PCs can access all files without size limitations.
good luck.
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How do I back up my Boot Camp partition to external firewire drive?

I have a 15 GB Windows XP Boot Camp partition (FAT32). I want to back it up to a 120 GB external Firewire drive. (I know the backup won't be bootable). In OX X Disk Utility, I formatted the external drive as MS-DOS (FAT). I planned to do the backup using the Windows Backup utility.
However, when booted into WinXP, Windows will not recognize the external hard drive. I thought I might need to create a FAT32 partion of 32 GB or less on the external drive, but I apparently can't do this in OS X or Windows (since Windows doesn't recognize the drive).
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2. Used the Finder to copy all files from my 15 GB Windows XP partition to the new disk image.
The following steps were only to determine if the disk image is a viable backup:
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4. Used Boot Camp Assistant to create a 32 GB Boot Camp partition on the new internal drive.
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7. Used the Finder to copy all the files from the 32 GB disk image to the new Boot Camp partition. (This overwrote a few Windows files installed by the aborted Win XP installation.)
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This indicates that the disk image containing all the files from my original Boot Camp partition is a viable backup, and can be used to restore the partition if necessary. I'm not sure if formatting the disk image as MS-DOS (rather than Mac OS extended) was necessary, or not.

Can I install OS 9 on an external Firewire drive?

I am not sure if this belongs in the G5 thread or the Leopard thread. Anyway:
I have a Mac G5, running Leopard 10.5.4.
I understand that Leopard will not run Classic applications.
*However, can I install OS 9 on an external Firewire drive? And just boot directly from that drive?*
I have essential OS 9 apps that I really need to keep.
I am aware of Classic emulators that run under Leopard, but that is not an option.
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+PS I should have added for the sake of others reading this thread…+
You, Dunestrider, can run your Mac in Tiger (and hence in Classic) because, AFAIK, your G5 originally shipped with Tiger.
Others should be aware that you cannot boot a Mac with an OS earlier than the one with which it shipped, i.e. if your Mac shipped with Leopard you cannot do what I suggested in my previous post. See this Apple doc.
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Trouble with installing 10.5 from an external firewire drive

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Okay I finally got around to creating the bootable disk image of 10.5 using Carbon Copy Cloner. Still my iMac is not booting from the firewire drive!
Here's a recap of everything I've tried. I'm at a complete loss now!
- I partitioned the HD into 2 partitions-- a 10gig one for the 10.5 install, the then the rest for Time Machine. I make the partition in Disk Utility on my MacBook.
- I've partitioned the drive a few times-- always partitioning it in APM format (b/c it needs to boot my non-intel iMac).
- I've created the disk image using "restore" in disk utility. I've again tried this a few times.
- I am able to boot my MacBook from the disk image I create! So I know the FW drive is able to be used to boot from!
- Here's what I've tried in terms of getting the iMac to boot from the FW drive. It always just boots to my internal drive instead. Sometimes I briefly see a folder and question mark. I've tried all 3 FW ports. I've selected the install partition at start up in preferences. I've also held down the option key at start up (only my internal drive shows) and I've held down command-option-shift-delete and again I get the question mark and it boots to my internal drive.
- And I installed Carbon Copy Cloner and made the disk image that way on my macbook. Still, I tried everything and the iMac is not able to boot from the firewire drive!
Since my DVD drive is broken, this is the only way for me to install 10.5! Help!

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All of a sudden this has started happening.
When i connect my video camera via firewire to my external Lacie harddrive, and turn the camera on, the drive I have it connected to goes off line. A window come up saying 'Device Removal'. When I disconnect the camera, the drive comes back online.
I have 4 drives connected inline and it happens to any one of them, whichever I attach the firewire to.
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PowerBook G4 15 Titanium Mac OS X (10.3.9)

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60 GB external Firewire Drive Won't Mount

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Hi Edwurd,
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Time for stronger medicine if the data is critical. There are commercial products that work differently and can recover disks when fsck can't. Look at Disk Warrior or Drive Genius. BUT... given that Disk Utility thinks it's a "non HFS volume," I wouldn't be optimistic.
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Hi(Bonjour)!
I don't know for this model but it's the implementation of firewire protocol on Canon's models that could make a problem.
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External Firewire Drive not Mounting

Hi, I've been searching these forums but can't find an aswer to my question. I just got a new 27" iMac, and purchased a Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adapter. I have 3 external Firewire drives, two of which are DC powered (the third, I understand, might be a lost cause, as it's bus powered, and I gather the bus power from TB won't power Firewire drives). At any rate, I'm not seeing either of the DC powered drives showing up, which is a big concern as I have about 5TB of stuff on them!
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10.4.4 corrupts external Firewire drives

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