Can firewire drives in series sometimes cause system failure?

We have had problems with a 2007 iMac (23") locking up at times. We have AppleCare, and have run numerous tests to try to elucidate the problem.
After the Apple service center here could not find any problem during several days of testing, we've been doing some testing back in our office. Here's what we seemed to have discovered:
Problems SOMETIMES seem to arise when two firewire drives are connected in series to the firewire 800 port. One is a LaCie d2 Big Disk USB 2.0 & FireWire 800 , the other is an OWC Mercury Elite Firewire 800 Pro. Our normal way of running these has been with the LaCie as the outermost of the two. We discovered that we seem to be free of problems if the order is reversed and the LaCie is off, though she can also run for (at least) a while with the LaCie on, as well.
I'm theorizing that our problems may be related to one of two things:
1) Conflict between the way the two drives, and the iMac, implement the firewire 800 standard.
2) Startup problems when the firewire drives are turned on more-or-less simultaneously. One drive could be in a state where its interface is transitioning from "pass through" (drive off) stage to the "active" (drive on) state.
My question is this: Is anyone aware of any problem like this? Is it understandable that such a problem could affect the system enough to even freeze up the system?

Sure external devices can cause issues with your Mac if it's causing some kind of hardware problem with the Firewire bus-- drawing too much power, over or under voltage etc.. Some iMacs just have problems with the FW ports themselves. Sometime resetting the SMC will fix it: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1543?viewlocale=en_US
I have two FW800 drives from OWC daisy chained and I have not had any issues at all. I would try and isolate the two drives if possible to see if the problem persists. Disconnect one of the drives for a few days and use just one drive. Then switch and connect only the other drive for a few days. Then maybe try one of them on FW800 and the other on USB. The FW400 and 800 share the same bus so it may not be any differnt testing one on each if it ends up being a power issue. I wouldn't think it's a power issue though because the external drives have their own power and should not be drawing any power from the computer. But you never know
George

Similar Messages

Lacie firewire drives in series?

I've been recording audio to a Lacie firewire drive. My internal Raptor drive is full with plug-ins. I need another drive for just plug ins. Has anyone had any success with 2 Lacie drives in series? One for audio recording and the other streaming samples. I was hoping I could put BFD2 on the 2nd firewire, and some of its sample libraries. Thanks

Sure external devices can cause issues with your Mac if it's causing some kind of hardware problem with the Firewire bus-- drawing too much power, over or under voltage etc.. Some iMacs just have problems with the FW ports themselves. Sometime resetting the SMC will fix it: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1543?viewlocale=en_US
I have two FW800 drives from OWC daisy chained and I have not had any issues at all. I would try and isolate the two drives if possible to see if the problem persists. Disconnect one of the drives for a few days and use just one drive. Then switch and connect only the other drive for a few days. Then maybe try one of them on FW800 and the other on USB. The FW400 and 800 share the same bus so it may not be any differnt testing one on each if it ends up being a power issue. I wouldn't think it's a power issue though because the external drives have their own power and should not be drawing any power from the computer. But you never know
George

IDVD encoding causes system failure during burn process

I have iDVD 5 on my work computer (dual 2.7Ghz G5 / 2.5 G RAM), and have burned successfully before my current project.
My current project has a 28:45 movie and I have tried two different themes with different combinations of drop zones (one with the movie as the drop zone and one with stills only) and everything previews okay, but when I start the burn process it will get to a certain point in the encoding and then the whole system crashes. I come back to check on the process, and my screen is filled with black squares with error info in it... (looks like a DOS screen or something) and it says something about system failure and that I need to restart my computer.
I'm so stubborn that I keep trying different combinations of possibilities but I'm having no luck. The movie that it's hangin up on was captured in Final Cut Pro from a VHS, edited in Final Cut to trim the excess black, and exported as a Final Cut Movie that I imported into iDVD.
As I said above, I have burned successfully on this computer and this iDVD, so the fact that this one project refuses to burn is perplexing.
any thoughts?

A gap in video would be a space between one clip and another. This is a problem when you are editing your footage, not capturing it. In other words, it is a user introduced problem.
In FCP when you say "Ignore Timecode Breaks" it just means to continue capturing video even if there is a timecode break. If you do not select this option, FCP would immediately stop catpturing whenever it hit a timecode break. A timecode break is not the same thing as a gap you create during editing. A timecode break could be as simple as rewinding your camera footage and then recording over it... the timecode now has a break because it is not continuous timecode, it jumps from one timecode to another.
Depending on what device you are capturing from, your audio may come in a few frames before or after the video. This would be especially true for a non-controllable device. It is a simple fix to adjust this as you would have noticed any sync issues right in the timeline during playback.
A system reboot in the middle of encoding is a serious crash... I doubt if it is the footage per se that is causing this to happen. Footage has been known to force an application to abort a process (or stay in an infinite loop), but an actual system shutdown would be extremely rare.
Consider recapturing the footage into a new FCP project and then creating a new iDVD project for it, this will eliminate either a corrupted FCP file or an iDVD project from the equation. Also, are you burning directly to disc or are you preparing a disc image? I'd go with the disc image approach because you can test your final build that way.

CS5 - Can't save to firewire drives "file open by another application" error

Hi There,
We can't seem to use Fireworks CS5 with external drives. If we have a file open and try to save back to the disk, we receive an error saying it could not save because the file is open by another application - "Save As" seems to work though.
Is any one else experiencing this or have a fix?
Cheers
Ben

Thanks for that Sarthak,
I don't have a USB drive but can confirm that I can save files when the file is on the mac desktop or on a USB stick without any issues.
So yes, at this point I think the issue is confined to Firewire drives (at least on my system which is 10.5.8).
Cheers
Ben

Firewire drive not visible on desktop

Firewire drive not visible on desktop
System profiler knows it's there.
Disk Utility indicates that it can be un-mounted (only a generic 'turned down page' for volume icon however), Disk has full Hard Drive logo...
But I cannot access it on this machine, but plug it into another and it's ok...

(only a generic 'turned down page' for volume icon however), Disk has full Hard Drive logo...
You can see that appearance in Disk Utility if the volume permissions are such that the current user has "No Access."
Since it can be accessed normally from another machine, connect it there and do a Get Info from Finder, looking at the Ownership and Permission Details at the bottom. Assuming this is not a startup disk, if any of the permissions is set to "No Access", change it to "Read and Write". Don't click "Apply to enclosed items" however.

Booting off external firewire drive

Hi Ive cloned my internal imac drive using superduper.
Inside the startup application i can now see my external drive as bootable.
I am trying to boot off the external drive TARGET disk mode. Is this correct to get the os to boot off the external FW drive?

Hello Joe.
You don't use Target disk mode to do so. When connected, you can select the external firewire drive to boot from via System Preferences > Startup Disk or use the Startup Manager during startup or restart.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106178

Window Update causing system lockup

I have a thousand questions on This computer. But the immediate question. I hope it will not take to long to get an answer on this one.. Two questions, actually. Cause to start figuring this I really need to know these two things:
1. How do I find out what version Bios I have on this computer, so I can know whether it actually needs the BIOS flashed.
2. I have had to "restore" my son's laptop type b570, twice now after installing the mandatory updates being offered by Microsoft Updates. For Window 7, 64 Bit, home version. Is there a freak issue that I need to know about here?!!

Hi
Welcome To Lenovo Community
We are really sorry to hear about the issue you are facing,
Based from what i read in your post, seems some MS updated is causing system failure
There are various reasons which can cause such issue. Please refer below link for various issue and resolution
http://support.microsoft.com/ph/6527
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/system-security/a/prevent-windows-update-problems.htm
For checking the Bios version of the system you can open system information under Accessories >system tools under system summary you can find the Bios version and date details
You may refer this Link for Bios & Driver Updates
Do give this a try and let us know
Hope This Helps
Cheers!!!
WW Social Media
Important Note: If you need help, post your question in the forum, and include your system type, model number and OS. Do not post your serial number.
Did someone help you today? Press the star on the left to thank them with a Kudo!
If you find a post helpful and it answers your question, please mark it as an "Accepted Solution"!
Follow @LenovoForums on Twitter!
How to send a private message? --> Check out this article.
English Community Deutsche Community Comunidad en Español

Sleeping firewire drive causes system crash

I have a 320 GB external firewire seagate drive connected to my Dual Ghz Quicksilver G4. At least twice a day, when I try to access that drive, I experience a system crash, what I believe to be a kernal panic. I get a message telling me I need to shut my computer down and restart it. I am thinking this is not so good for my computer.
So, either the hard drive is the problem or it's the third party firewire card i have installed in one of my PCI slots. But here's the thing, other drives are connected to that card.
Would keeping the Seagate drive awake stop this from happening? It goes to sleep all the time. Have others experienced problems with the seagate drives? Should I stop using it?

Hi, Aaron. Welcome to the Discussions.
If you are seeing this message, that indicates a kernel panic.
There could be a problem with the FireWire drive or the card. If disconnecting the drive for a few days results in no additional panics, then it is the drive. For that, I'd contact Seagate. If not, the card becomes suspect. An examination of the panic log might prove helpful.
You can also try running Step 1 of the process specified in my "Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption" FAQ against the Seagate FireWire drive.
Checking the FireWire cables, trying different cables or ports, checking that the card is installed correctly, checking that you assembled the Seagate drive and enclosure correctly (sounds like you built the FW drive) are some other troubleshooting steps to consider. The FireWire enclosure itself may be defective.
See also my "Resolving Kernel Panics" FAQ. This FAQ includes step-by-step instructions for identifying and resolving some of the most common causes of kernel panics, including tips like those above.
My FAQ is a roadmap: start at the beginning and work through to the end, following the instruction in the order specified, including the "If all else fails..." section if a cause or resolution is not found in an earlier troubleshooting step therein.
You maybe unable to prevent the FireWire drive from sleeping. Secondary hard drives (second internal, as well as external drives) may not respect the "Put the hard drive(s) to sleep when possible" option if de-selected. I discuss this particular issue in my "Spinning Beach Ball Of Death (SBBOD)" FAQ, specifically in the section entitled "SBBOD spins for 30-35 seconds. You may hear your hard drives spinning up."
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

System hardlocks when ejecting firewire drives

Anyone else having this issue? I've had it since the 2.6.16 kernels, and I'm currently running -8. I have both an ipod and an external hard drive that will hang the system about 75% of the time when I "safely remove" or use the eject command and unhook them. Both are firewire. I can't find anything in the logs.

I may have solved this. Sometime during recent upgrades my system started loading the eth1394 module along with the regular 1394 modules. I've never seen this before, and have no use at all for it - more to the point, it was screwing with my existing ethernet. Reasoning there might be a connection, I've added eth1394 to my blacklist, and so far have not been able to make my box hang. I've also upgraded to 2.6.16.2 w/o issue.

Can Leopard be installed from a Firewire Drive or Another Mac?

I have a Mac Mini with a faulty Super Drive. It's not really a problem since I only use it as a network appliance and rarely install software via CD/DVD. But now I don't know know how to upgrade it to Leopard. And since its my File server, I can't use it with Time Machine.
Is it possible to put the install on one of my Firewire Drives and install it from there?
Any advice?

Dear Cabak
You may have options, but I am not sure as I have only two days with Leopard thus far, but....
I am positive with Tiger it was possible to start the client computer up in Target Disk Mode and use the host computer to "upgrade", "archive and upgrade", or "clean install" the operating system.
You will actually start the HOST computer up with the install disc AFTER you have the client computer in TDM. You simply choose the client computer hard drive and select the type of install you prefer to do.
Remember to check the client computer for any offending files that will cause you to get caught in a blue screen freeze on startup. There are plenty of threads in the discussions about people having this problem. Read the following document if you are not aware of the situation.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306857
The beautiful thing about this (if there were one) is that you can remove these files easily while in Target Disc Mode. These are the files you should get rid of before the upgrade process...
/Library/Preference Panes/Application Enhancer.prefpane
/Library/Frameworks/Application Enhancer.framework
/System/Library/SystemConfiguration/Application Enhancer.bundle
/Library/Preferences/com.unsanity.ape.plist
I think you will be pleased with the outcome of your efforts.
-James

My iMac (late 2006) no longer boots from FireWire drives, although they contain all the system files.

My iMac (late 2006) no longer starts (boots) from Firewire drives, although they all contain a current system (Mac OS X 10.6.7). If the drives are connected with USB 2, they boot normally. The FireWire drives appear in the Start Volume program, but they do not boot. If I press and hold the Alt key while booting, only the internal drives and the USB drives appear as options. What can I do in order to boot from FireWire drives as I always could in the past?

I'd first recommend doing a SMC reset and if that doesn't work refer to:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10333969-263.html
and
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/firewiretroubleshooting.html
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
Roger

Can OS be installed and run from a Firewire drive?

Hello,
I recently started to switch from WindowsXP to a Mac Mini. I was considering installing WindowsXP to a drive that I put into my AMS Venus 3.5" drive enclosure. This is a combination enclosure that supports USB 2.0 and Firewire 400. I've never used a Firewire device before so I don't know how well XP would install to and run from a Firewire drive. I'd like to setup XP to run underr Parallels. Its a Seageate 160gig 7200rpm drive that's about 1 1/2 years old.
Is this possible? Is is actually usable going through a Firewire connection?
Thanks,
Jeff

Hi Jeff,
installing Windows under Parallels will produce two files that contain the Windows System itself (filename.hdd) and the configuration file (filename.pvs).
These two files can indeed be put onto an external harddisk and run from it.
It is quite usuable and you should get the same 'speed' as if these files where on your internal HD.
Have a look at the PDF files here http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/ for further information on how-to.
Have Fun
Stefan

Can't daisy-chain Firewire drives reliably from 1-port Powerbook. Hub??

I have found that I cannot get a daisy-chained Firewire drive to mount more than 50% of the time. This problem doesn't happen with Tiger with the same drives. I have tried 4 different brands of late-model Firewire drives (Iomega, Smartdisk, Maxtor, and Seagate) with different cables and what happens is that a drive that is directly attached to the 12" Powerbook will mount, but the second chained drive fails to mount a majority of the time. Since I only have one Firewire port, this is preventing me from using more than one drive at a time, and I lost two Firewire drives to corruption today. Three out of four partitions lost contained bootable backups of Leopard and Tiger. Ouch!
This issue could prevent from using Leopard with my Powerbook, which is supposed to be Leopard-compatible. I can't remake the clones too easily with only being able to attach one drive at a time. I am thinking I will order a Firewire hub and try that, but I am not sure if that would be a solution, and I am wondering why I can always daisy-chain under Tiger, and not under Leopard. Does anyone have experience with Firewire hubs and Firewire operation details? Will I be able to get reliable Firewire with a hub?

I have exactly the same problem !
I have found this :
Using Multiple FireWire Devices at the Same Time
Power Macintosh computers can transfer perfect digital video (DV) on FireWire when no other devices are using the FireWire bus. If you have problems transferring digital video, make certain that no other FireWire devices are being used at the same time. Turning on a DV camera that is already connected may cause a FireWire hard disk to stop working. If this happens, turn off the camera and verify that the hard disk has recovered. Then unplug the FireWire cable from the camera, turn the camera on, and reconnect the FireWire cable to the camera. Check with the hard disk vendor for a possible firmware update to prevent this problem.
here:
http://www.2ndwave.com/firewire.asp
At the moment I can't upset what I'm doing to test it but I intend to do that as soon as I finish copying transferring...
I have the following device attached to different firewire ports:
a firewire video device connecting my G5 Desktop to the TV screen
a firewire ibot
I thought I would give u a head start

Catastrophic system failure on internal drive, can I do this safely?

I've had a catastrophic system failure on the internal drive of my iMac, but I have a perfectly working bootable clone of everything as of yesterday. Can I just boot up on the clone, demount the internal drive, and continue to work safely? I would just use CCC to clone back the good drive, but I don't have 4 hours to wait. I am trying to complete an FCP project on a tight deadline. What say u? thx!!!
coocoo

When I work from my clone (Firewire 800) I notice no performance hit. Even on my FW 400 disk, I notice no performance hit. Do a Permissions Repair from Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility on the disk when you first boot up.
All your applications should run fine. AFA rendering, that is more dependent on your clock speed than and RAM than on the connection of the drive.
-mj

OF can't see external bootable Firewire drive on restart

I've installed OS X 10.5 on an external Firewire drive via the optical drive on my Powerbook, however I can't get the computer to boot from this drive, regardless of whether I set it as the startup disk in System Preferences or by booting from the OS X install DVD and selecting it as the startup disk from there. The drive mounts fine in both OS X from the system drive and is visible from the OS X Installer.
If I Option restart to get a list of bootable devices, it doesn't appear at all.
I've reset the PMU, reset the NVRAM in Open Firmware and reset the PRAM and NVRAM by pressing CommandOption+PR.
I've changed FW cables, used the other port on the drive, changed the drive setting from slave to CS all to no avail.
I can boot my 15" MBPro from this external drive without a problem.
I'm unsure if this is related, but if I leave the Powerbook off for an extended period, when I restart it, it has forgotten the time and date, and can't seem to remember the airport network password either. Is there some PRAM battery which has crapped out?
What is going wrong??

Well it definitely sounds like you need a new clock battery. Unfortunately I doubt that is related to the hard drive issue. But for now try replacing the battery and reply back if the problem persists.

Can firewire drives in series sometimes cause system failure?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for