Author Topic: firewire drives with the Oxford 922 chipset. (Read 3306 times)

Thomas S. England · « **on:** November 03, 2003, 05:19:34 AM »

I've held off on Panther due to the external drive problems (I have several external drives).
My question is how do you determine if a drive has the Oxford 922 chipset?

Of course, I'm not yet convinced that the problems are indeed limited to those drives only, so I'll wait for a fix to be put in place anyway.

kps · « **Reply #1 on:** November 03, 2003, 09:19:21 PM »

I could be wrong on this, Tom, but I thing the 922 chipset is only for the Firewire 800 drives. If you have older firewire drives with the 911 chipset, they may be ok. How exactly you tell the difference...I don't know.

Mayo · « **Reply #2 on:** November 03, 2003, 09:31:16 PM »

And isn't the problem restricted to drives that are connected when Panther is installed? I thought that the data loss could be avoided if Firewire drives are disconnected before installing Panther.

This is another example of why it is important to make multiple copies of all important files. I would not trust important files to any hard drive. I would back-up to more than one drive, if possible, AND burn CDs, with at least one copy stored off-premises to use in case of theft or fire.

rongold · « **Reply #3 on:** November 04, 2003, 05:42:17 AM »

The problem has been reported mainly, but not only, with FIrewire 800 drives (see the ever growing number of reports and cries of anguish at the Apnther-Firewire Apple discussionforum:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX?128...fQ.10@.599b4a59

There are a small number of reports of the problem with Firewire 400 ports and Firewire 400 drives.

The problem does not seem to occur during the installation of Panther. Rather it occurs during start-up or shut-down of a computer with Panther installed if the Firewire drive is connected and mounted. During the start-up/shut-down process, something happens to destroy the directory on the firewire drive.

Details also at Panther-Firewire Report at MacIntouch, with links to the firmware upgrades that have been released to date: all from Firewire drive makers, none from Apple, which knew of the problem during beta releases of Panther and still released the retail version without warning users.

Mayo · « **Reply #4 on:** November 04, 2003, 11:26:50 AM »

QUOTE

which knew of the problem during beta releases of Panther and still released the retail version without warning users.

If that is true I am really shocked...no kidding.

Mayo · « **Reply #5 on:** November 04, 2003, 12:37:05 PM »

This just in from the Tidbits folks:

In addition, users are reporting that the problem is not limited
to FireWire 800 drives; a fellow Mac author was bitten by the
problem using a FireWire 400 drive with the Oxford 911 chipset.
For the time being, we recommend keeping Panther away from any
FireWire drives until this issue is resolved. If you must use an
external FireWire drive in Panther, be sure to mount the drive
manually after the Mac has started up, and dismount it manually
before restarting. And for goodness sake, make sure you're backing
up carefully, preferably to CD or DVD, or over a network.

rongold · « **Reply #6 on:** November 04, 2003, 01:28:28 PM »

According to a Forum Helper at the Panther-FIrewire Apple Discussion Forum, the Firewire disaster may also occur if the Panther drive goes to sleep. He recommended unmounting and disconnecting any firewire drive prior to [1] rebooting, [2] shutting down, or [3] putting computer to sleep. Which means you must turn off Energy Saver or disable sleep so long as Firewire Drive is connected and mounted. He is only one to mention sleep problem.

On a more general note, several posters to the Apple Discussion (link given above) suggest that the problem is not restricted to Panther or FireWire 800 or any one chip set. Rather that, for unknown reasons, it can happen at any time with any Firewire Drive. Therefore, they recommend always unmounting and disconnecting Firewire drives before rebooting or shutting down.

rongold · « **Reply #7 on:** November 04, 2003, 01:40:48 PM »

Just to emphasize that the problem is not limited to FW800 drives, this was posted at TidBits Talk by Dan Frakes:

"On the other hand, last night I took a "spare" portable FireWire hard drive
-- a SmartDisk FireFly (FireWire 400) -- reformatted it under Panther's Disk
Utility, and plugged it into the front (FireWire 400) port on a Power Mac
G5. It mounted fine and functioned normally. I then restarted the G5, and
the FireWire drive was toast. It would no longer mount under Panther,
Jaguar, or even OS 9. Clearly this isn't "expected behavior"

CyberPet · « **Reply #8 on:** November 04, 2003, 01:41:06 PM »

I've heard horror stories saying it doesn't matter if you turn on and off your firewire drive while you are booted up, it can be corrupt even while you're using it!

I smell a huge lawsuit here!

I have three firewire disks, 20 GB, 160 GB and 180 GB and have some crutial data on them that has no backup (guess I should go and buy a few hundred packs of DVD's).

Gary S · « **Reply #9 on:** November 04, 2003, 03:16:41 PM »

Nasty problem.

Petra,
Can't you just disconnect them temporarily until Apple comes out with a fix?

CyberPet · « **Reply #10 on:** November 04, 2003, 03:26:31 PM »

Gary S, that's what I've done... but frustrating when I need some info from them... how long will the wait be until there's a fix??!!

Gary S · « **Reply #11 on:** November 04, 2003, 05:21:03 PM »

I was just over at the Apple forums and......well, there are a lot of angry people over there!

It looks like Panther hosed a lot of FW drives....and a lot of data. Or not Panther, it was the drive manufacturer's fault.

Mayo · « **Reply #12 on:** November 04, 2003, 05:36:52 PM »

Whoever is at fault, this certainly puts a black cloud over the release of Panther.

Gary S · « **Reply #13 on:** November 04, 2003, 07:00:39 PM »

That's for sure Mayo. I don't think we can even BIOB.

News:

Author Topic: firewire drives with the Oxford 922 chipset. (Read 3306 times)