Question : Problem: Unrealiable external firewire HD.

Below is a message thread with Maxtor support.  I am not getting anywhere with them.  This Maxtor is fairly old, perhaps 4-5 years, pre- OSX.  Do you know of any issues with external firewire drives in OSX?

 
Maxtor Firewire Drive Hangs, updated driver?


 
Discussion Thread



 Customer
05/21/2004 08:58 PM 

Yes, it was re-initialized under 10.3.3. In fact this has been an ongoing issues ever since 10.0, I just did not realize why OS X would occasionally hang with the spinning beach ball cursor. I finally realized that the whole problem was being caused by the external firewire Maxtor drive. I finally figured it out when I got a new computer and moved the drive to the new computer. The old computer now runs great for weeks with no problems and the new computer began to have the problem. I now have the Maxtor disconnected and all works fine, waiting to see if there is a solution. I would like to have the additional disk space, but not with the instability. If you guys can confirm that this Maxtor model should work then I will search elsewhere for a solution. I thought this might be a know problem and you had a solution.

Thanks,

Jeff

 

 Response (TSAlan44)
05/21/2004 08:03 AM 

Dear Jeff Bayless,

Thanks for the updated information.

Have you tried reinitializing this drive in OS 10.3.3 and see if the drive works correctly after this is done? Sometimes external drives do have to be reformatted in OS X after being used on OS 9 to work correctly. After reinitializing the drive should work OK on both operating systems. Of course you would want to do a data backup of the drive before reinitializing the drive. Can you disable the sleep or spin down modes for this drive in your operating system and see how the drive behaves?
If you try the drive on another machine running a different version of OS 10 does the drive behave normally? Obviously I would rather troubleshoot this issue by trying the drive on a different computer first rather then going thru the radical step of reinitializing the drive all over again.

Thank you,

Alan TS44
1-800 2MAXTOR (voice)
353 1 204 1111 (International)
http://www.maxtor.com (web)

 

 Customer
05/20/2004 05:31 PM 

> Yes, it seems to work fine when booted in OS 9.2.2, but has problems
> of not completing a large copy job or simply does not respond after it
> has gone to sleep and spun down sometimes when used in OSX. I am
> using MAC OS extended. Is this drive suppose to work with OSX? If
> so, I can try to reinstall the OS. Thanks, Jeff
>

 

 Response (TSAlan44)
05/17/2004 08:53 AM 

Dear Jeff Bayless,

Thank you for sending your MAXTOR E-mail inquiry.

I understand you are having problems accessing data on the external drive when using this drive on your Panther computer. Does the drive still work OK on OS 9.2.2? What is the file system on this drive (MAC OS standard, PC Exchange, MAC OS extended)? Please let me know what file system is on this drive as this will determine how I troubleshoot this issue.

Thank you,

Alan TS44
1-800 2MAXTOR (voice)
353 1 204 1111 (International)
http://www.maxtor.com (web)

 

 Customer
05/16/2004 09:44 PM 

> After further searching, i see that you do not have any software for
> OSX, nor is it needed. Is this older drive model compatible with OSX?
> I did install your OneTouch Mac OS X Driver Update
> but that seems to make things worse. How can I un-install this driver?
>

 

 Preliminary Response
05/16/2004 08:57 PM 

Title: "No Supported Devices Found" error when using 1394 / Firewire Software for Mac.
Link: https://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=765&p_created=1000942669

Title: How to partition & format your External Storage Devices for Macintosh Computers
Link: https://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=735&p_created=1004474974

Title: Recognition problems seen when connecting multiple External Storage Hard Drives
Link: https://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1618&p_created=1062788184

Title: Are there Mac OS X drivers for the 1394, Personal Storage, or USB drives?
Link: https://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=884&p_created=1011318562

Title: Personal Storage drive may not mount in Mac OS 9 after installing Mac OS X 10.1
Link: https://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1003&p_created=1019586381

 

 Customer
05/16/2004 08:57 PM 

Maxtor model FWRA040PRX01 on Mac OSX 10.3.3 not reliable. Works for a while but often get spinning wheel when trying to access. Another symptom is tranfer of large amounts of data often does not finish. Works fine if booted on OS 9.2.2. I have Maxtor Mac Software 3.1 I cannot find any updates to this. Do you have or do I need updated drivers for this model?

Thanks,

Jeff

Answer : Problem: Unrealiable external firewire HD.

I think i got it. The enclosure probably doesnt use the oxford 911 chipset. Non 911 chipsets did have problems somewhat like you're describing. I'd be willing to bet that a 911 enclosure eradicates the problems.