WD Firewire drives/Aftermarket FW drive cases

[Ted Langdell]

Just wondering whether anyone has any experience with Western Digital 
Firewire drives.

Also, whether anyone has had good success with specific brands of 
Firewire cases into which you can put a hard drive.

I'm in part trying to troubleshoot problems I'm experiencing with two 
older Western Digital drives.

If I connect either to my old iMac or new eMac, they mount, but after a 
few minutes, crash the whole Firewire system, requiring a restart.

This was true in OS 9.2.2 and 10.3.2.  The drives involved are a 45GB 
model WD450A001-RNN and the 60GB version in the same series.  Both are 
at least a couple or three years old.

A newer 120GB Model WD1200B02-RNN has also been acting up.  At turn on, 
if connected to another drive (while not necessarily connected to 
anything else on the FW chain) its red drive activity light will blink 
on and off like it was a heart in fibrillation.  Disconnecting anything 
from both FW port ends the activity.  It also will sometimes act like 
it is repeatedly spinning down, then back up again and down, up and 
finally up.

I HAVE had some power supply problems with at least one of PS units and 
replaced it with a factory unit for $25.  A 120 GB drive in the same 
series as the 120GB just mentioned was replaced under warranty.  The 
replacement seems to act as one would expect.

My interest in bare FW cases is to check whether the smaller WD drives 
themselves are actually OK,

If they are, it may be that I'm actually seeing either problems with 
the Firewire to ATA bridge or power supply issues.

If that's the problem, I can either replace the power units and/or pick 
up new cases for about the cost of a 250 GB drive and get my data off 
the older drives.

Alas, I don't have an ATA equipped Mac tower unit to plug the drives 
directly into... or I could avoid buying a case to check things with.

Cheers.

Ted Langdell
Ted Langdell Creative Broadcast Services
Marysville, CA