[1394] Re: FireWire drive likes G3s, hates G4s

[Henry Olders]

I had a similar problem with a Granite Digital firewire box, after 
upgrading from OS 9.2 to 10.2. The drive would spin down, and then 
never spin up again. Any attempt to use the finder would result in a 
spinning beach ball (forever!). The only way out was to reboot.

I then discovered that there was a firmware update on the Granite 
website. This fixed the problem, ie the drive still spins down after 
maybe 15 minutes (never timed it) but it will spin up again when I use 
the finder or a program makes a disk access. Not perfect, because of 
the spinup delay, but certainly better than rebooting!

Perhaps a simple applescript to have the finder open and then close a 
new window, to run every 14 minutes, might do the trick...

Henry

On Thursday, Apr 3, 2003, at 12:53 Canada/Eastern, Richard Brown wrote:

> I use all ADS Pyro External Firewire drives, which use the Oxford 911 
> chip.
>
> They functioned perfectly on all MacOS versions UNTIL 10.2.4. In 
> 10.2.4, external FW drives will function at the get go, either booting 
> the drives before or after the computer, but with NO activity, it 
> turns out there is a glitch in 10.2.4 which issues a hardware level 
> drive shutdown command to the external FW drives. A guru on the forums 
> of the Mac Knowledgebase informed me of this problem. It is a fatal 
> error, but does NOT cause data damage as far as I have been able to 
> tell with many, many repetitions of the issue. The drive shutdown 
> command is on a timer, starting from the last drive access. As I 
> recall it is 15 minutes, after which, all the external drives will be 
> shut down (I have 5 ADS drives externally, all go away), but to OS 
> 10.2.4, there is no acknowledgment, and the drive icons remain. Trying 
> to access a 10.2.4 shut down FW drive is a mixed bag. You'd expect a 
> "wake from sleep" thing... maybe yes, but usually NO. The forced shut 
> down is NOT a normal sleep mode, it appears, and thus, of my five 
> drives, one, two, maybe three might spin up, but usually more like one 
> or two.
>
> The solution maybe to make a constantly running Unix utility to poll 
> the external drives all the time, to keep the 10.2.4 counter from 
> hitting 15 minutes.
>
> As to compatibility, the ADS drives have worked with TiBooks, G4 
> Desktops, and G3's around here.
>
> Richard Brown
>
>
>
> On Thursday, April 3, 2003, at 09:01 AM, Mike Pickard wrote:
>
>>> Message-ID: <list-5543512 at mail.ninewire.com>
>>> Reply-To: "Macintosh FireWire List" 
>>> <FireWire at lists.themacintoshguy.com>
>>> Sender: "Macintosh FireWire List" 
>>> <FireWire at lists.themacintoshguy.com>
>>> To: "Macintosh FireWire List" <FireWire at lists.themacintoshguy.com>
>>> Precedence: list
>>> X-Original-Message-Id: <a05210500bab20114934b@[192.168.123.109]>
>>> Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 09:21:30 -0600
>>> From: Mike Pickard <mike at gerfnit.com>
>>> Subject: [1394] Re: FireWire drive likes G3s, hates G4s
>>> MIME-Version: 1.0
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
>>>
>>> My Madlogix external Firewire drive mounts fine on my G3 B&W at home 
>>> and an iBook at a local Apple Store.  But it doesn't show up at all 
>>> on my Powerbook G4 12" or the store's desktop G4.  The difference 
>>> seems to be the processor chip and/or the support chips in these 
>>> machines.  Every one was running OS X 10.2.3 or.4.
>>>
>>> Has anyone come across a Firewire drive whose bridge card is CPU 
>>> chip sensitive?
>>>
>>> Madlogix has disappeared from the Yahoo Mall or I'd ask them some 
>>> questions.  Anybody with a Madlogix drive having better luck?
>>>
>>> Thanks for your assistance.
>>
>> -- 
>> The Great American {Alien} Novel
>> http://www.gerfnit.com
>>
>> ----------
>> MacFireWireTalk list, a listserv for discussion of FireWire on 
>> Macintosh.
>> FAQ at <http://www.themacintoshguy.com/lists/FireWireFAQ.shtml>.
>>
>> ADS Tech.| PYRO Drive Kit: convert your drive to firewire!
>> Dr. Bott | Now $169.00 <http://www.drbott.com/prod/ADS.html>
>>
>>   Cyberian   | Support this list when you buy at Outpost.com!
>>   Outpost    |         http://www.themacintoshguy.com/outpost.shtml
>>
>> FireWire | 2.5" and 3.5" FireWire hard disk enclosures
>> Depot   | starting at $95!!  <http://www.fwdepot.com>
>>
>
>
> ----------
> MacFireWireTalk list, a listserv for discussion of FireWire on 
> Macintosh.
> FAQ at <http://www.themacintoshguy.com/lists/FireWireFAQ.shtml>.
>
> ADS Tech.| PYRO Drive Kit: convert your drive to firewire!
> Dr. Bott | Now $169.00 <http://www.drbott.com/prod/ADS.html>
>
>   Cyberian   | Support this list when you buy at Outpost.com!
>   Outpost    |         http://www.themacintoshguy.com/outpost.shtml
>
> FireWire | 2.5" and 3.5" FireWire hard disk enclosures
> Depot   | starting at $95!!  <http://www.fwdepot.com>
>