Sharing External Firewire Drive

Hello all,
I just received a new Maxtor One Touch 3 Firewire 400 500GB external hard drive for christmas. My wife and I are recent Mac converts, having sold off 5 PCs to purchase my iMac, and her Macbook. Now my dilemma is this. We both want to use the external drive to backup our files. I have the drive plugged into my iMac via Firewire, and it is already set-up to backup my drive once a week. I was wondering if there is a way for her to access the drive through our airport network and back-up her files. I have my computer enabled for file sharing, is there anything else we need to do??

Welcome to Discussions - You need to partition the drive using Disk Utility> Mac OS Extended Journaled, otherwise backing up your wife's data will overwrite yours. Make sure each partition is at least the size of the HD on each machine.
Miriam

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Sharing external FireWire drive between two Mac Pros

I know that sharing an external FireWire drive between two machines (i.e. both connected at the same time) is a very bad things as both will assume that they have exclusive write access to the drive and quite quickly write over what the other machine has just written.
Would it be possible though to mount the drive as read-only on the first machine and in read-write mode on the second? Would this preserve integrity as the second machine would in fact have exclusive write access or would other problems arise?
Thanks for any responses to a stupid question!
Peter

Mmm, Connect the drive to the private secure network Mac. Connect the two Macs by FireWire and create a network over the firewire connection, configure it to use class C addresses, ie. 169.x.x.x manually and then share the firewire drive to the other Mac (also on a class C network address over firewire).
Both macs will still have their own ethernet network addresses and each network will not be visible from the "other" network (unless you choose to share your internet connection over firewire).
The only caveat here is that the firewire drive will be visible to every other Mac on the secure network that you allow to connect to it (which is why I chose that one, rather than the public Mac). Or can you restrict sharing to only one network ..... didn't think so.

"Sharing" external firewire drive with Windows Machine

Is there a way to share my external firewire drive on my mac with a networked XP machine?

Have a look at Sharepoints for the Mac. It should provide the services you are looking for.

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?
Thanks

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.
x

External Firewire drive not Mounting/Appearing!

I have a White macbook core duo and when I plug in the External Firewire Drive it doesn't appear anymore! The Drive draws power from the computer still yet the computer cannot detect the drive. I addition the when i ran Disk Utility the program did not load completely till i removed the firewire drive. I have a SmartDisk "FireLite" FireWire Drive (40gb.) Help PLEASE!!!!
Message was edited by: slverice

I had this problem too with my G5 (PPC) and brand new Mac Book.
Both of my computers were given the same local subnet address. To change this go to System Preferences > Sharing > Computer Name, you'll see an "Edit" button, click on it and change the name or add a "2" to the end of the name before ".local"
I guess what is happening is both computers are using the same local subnet and your macbook isn't being recognized.
Mine works fine now, hope this has helped you!
Jay

Cannot access shared external hard drive with other mac accounts

I cannot access a shared external hard drive with other mac accounts (all accounts are on the same macbook Pro). The shared external drive is shared via time capsule and is connected (of course) in USB. I see well this external hard drive as a shared disk with my main account. Yes shared option has been activated with the Airport Utility .. but when I open other account these othe accounts can see the external drive but cannot access to its content that is flagged with a no way sign. Strangely enough when I close my main account and start opening a new session with one of the other account then fine I can access the external hard drive and its content .. BUT then it is from my main account than I cannot access its content the no way sign showing ..
Looks like only one account at a time can access the content of this SHARED external hard drive .. any one as an idea on how to really make it a shared hard drive so that all accounts on the same mac can also access it ? I am at my wit ends on this case. THANKS ..

Results of my enquiries at Apple Genius Bar .. the guys found the problem interesting. They've been unable to provide a fix neither to give any explanation as to the reason why. To be fair I was not much impressed by the technical level demonstrated ..
In the mean time I have found that if account no.1 can see the shared external drive content and in such case account no.2 (same Mac computer) cannot see its content (only the external HD with a no way sign) this account no.2 can UNMOUNT (by ejecting) this external HD from account 1 and then remount it (just clicking on the TC shared part in a finder window) and .. see and access its content ; whilst account no.1 cannot see its content anylonger. Unless it unmounts the shared external HD and remount it .. then account no.2 can see its content anylonger. This can goes on an on.
So eventually YES the TC can allow to share a USB external drive between several accounts and a same Mac .. BUT this require to unmount and remount EACH time the external drive is accessed from a "no.2 account". So OK to share files with seldom access but not practical in case of frequent access needed.
I just I have now to figure how iTunes can automatically unmount and remount a shared external HD when it needs to access one of this shared HD content from on time account no.1 and then next time from account no.2. May be I am asking too much ..

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...
Any suggestions?

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...

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).
Any suggestions on how to backup the Boot Camp partition will be appreciated. I'm mainly interested in preserving all programs and data. Ideally, a clone could be created that could be restored back to the original partition in bootable form, but from studying this and other forums, it dosn't seem to be easy to do this for a FAT32-formatted volume.

My goal was to create a bootable clone of my FAT32 Boot Camp partition, while at the same time increasing the size of the partition from 15 GB to 32 GB if possible. This is what I did:
1. As suggested in this thread, I used Disk Utility to create a disk image. I formatted it as MS-DOS (FAT), and made it 32 GB in size.
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:
3. Removed the internal hard drive with my original Win XP partition, and installed a new internal hard drive.
4. Used Boot Camp Assistant to create a 32 GB Boot Camp partition on the new internal drive.
5. Inserted my Win XP installation disk and started the Windows installation. Formatted the new partition as FAT32. (I used the long rather than the quick format method--not sure if this was necessary.)
6. Continued the Windows installation to the point of restarting the computer, at which time I used the Option key to boot back into OS X.
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.)
8. Restarted and used the Option key to select the new 32 GB Boot Camp Partition. Windows booted as usual with all files, programs, etc. from the original 15 GB partition. Windows did complain about "new hardware" and required a restart, but all appears normal.
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.
Any advice, insights, suggestions, et cetera in this matter will be appreciated!

+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.
Also, Dunestrider, I just realised belatedly that you won't have to buy Tiger - you will still have the original Install disk(s) that came with the G5.
Andreas

Trouble with installing 10.5 from an external firewire drive

I have a family pack of 10.5 and installed it just fine on my macbook. But, I'm having trouble getting my imac DVD player to read the DVD. It just spins and spits it out, and spins and spits it out. The imac is not covered under applecare so spending money to get the DVD drive fixed (which I barely use) is not something I want to do right now.
Anyway, I followed instructions on a this website to install 10.5 from an external firewire drive. (http://iuseapple.com/blog/apple-how-to/advanced-os-x/2007/10/29/how-to-install-l eopard-from-external-firewire-hard-drive/)
But I get stuck and am not able to actually get my imac to boot from the installer. Basically, I am able to use disk utility to create a copy of the disk image on my macbook. That resulting file ends in ".cdr" and it mounts when I double click it.
And I partitioned my firewire hard drive without problems.
I think I'm messing up when it comes to doing the restore. If I try to drag the .dmg mounted file in to the "source" it doesn't work (is greyed out). If I try to drag the mounted .dmg there than it works, but I get an error when I click "restore" (something about scans and images not being found). I tried physically copying the .dmg file onto the partition, but then when I plugged the HD into my imac, I wasn't able to get the imac to boot from the installer.
What am I doing wrong? If someone could walk me through these last steps I'd appreciate it!

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!

Connecting DV camera via firewire disconnects external firewire drive

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.
I trashed FCP permissions, but that didn't help. I'm running FCPHD 4.5.
Any ideas?
PowerBook G4 15 Titanium Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Its the canon camera. Firewire and canon cameras apparently don't play in the same sandbox very well. All macs have only one firewire bus. For a macbook pro you can use an express card slot, but the imac's you are kinda stuck. The best course of action is to copy to hard drive and then move it within imovie. I read this in Tom Wolksy's book on FCE. It is weird. I have a Sony HDV and an older imac and i can use one firewire port for importing and go straight to an external firewire drive--no problem. However, in his book on page 56. It states the firewire issue. I know this is an imovie forum, but i can assume its also the same for imovie.

Sharing External Hard Drive with Windows PC

I just purchased the Maxtor Turbo III. I can read/write to/from my PowerBook to the Maxtor, but I cannot even see the drive when it is attached to my PC. I'm assuming that it the drive has been formatted for OSX but that it needs to be reformatted for PC.
Is there a formating method that can be applied such that both Windows PC's and Macs can read and write to the drive?
Thanks

You wrote: "Thanks, but isn't Fat32 "old technology"? And doesn't it have file size limitations?"Yes: 4 GB is the largest file size under FAT32.
See my "Sharing a FireWire drive between a Mac and a PC" FAQ for some other ideas.
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.

Sharing External Firewire Drive

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