[P1] backing up, slightly OT

[Brian Pearce]

> It doesn't effect *all* external Firewire drives; but there have been 
> a number of incidents where drives has been corrupted when connected 
> during startup...

And while we're on that subject, from MacMinute:

Apple to address Panther/FireWire drive problems
October 30 - 19:39 EST   Apple on Thursday responded to concerns that 
Mac OS X 10.3 Panther disables external FireWire hard drives. "Apple 
has identified an issue with external FireWire hard drives using the 
Oxford 922 bridge chip-set with firmware version 1.02 that can result 
in the loss of data stored on the disk drive," Apple said in a 
statement provided to MacCentral. "Apple is working with Oxford 
Semiconductor and affected drive manufacturers to resolve this issue, 
which resides in the Oxford 922 chip-set. In the interim, Apple 
recommends that you do not use these drives."

I'm not sure how one would go about checking for the chipset (Apple 
System Profiler, maybe?), but better to be warned.

BRIAN/bpearce at cloud9.net