[G4] Firewire problem

[Sims David]

Hello Perry,

Thank you very much.  Now I understand what is going on.

The drive was showing up on B's desktop, and I connected A to B via  
the network panel in finder, and mounted the firewire drive drive  
like it was hooked to B.  Worked fine.

Thanks again,
David


On Aug 28, 2005, at 12:09 PM, Perry The Cynic wrote:

> Here's what's going on: A and B are connected via FireWire. *You*  
> think you're just doing this for networking, but the computers  
> don't know that. They combine their FireWire buses into one "super- 
> bus", which now contains A+B+the drive. (That's how FireWire  
> works.) This means that, technically speaking, the drive is  
> attached to *both* A and B, and whichever finds the drive first  
> treats it as a local drive. Normally that's A (it's closer), but if  
> you turn off A for wee bit, the drive will detach from A, and then  
> B may find it before A gets back up.
>
> Funnily, *if* B has gotten hold of the drive, then A could actually  
> mount it (as a network drive) from B. The situation is really  
> *that* symmetric. That's FireWire for you...
>
> (As another demonstration, plug an iSight into B and start iChat on  
> A. It'll see the iSight as locally attached, and will happily use  
> it if B isn't. All one big happy family of devices.)
>
> As to a solution - I don't know a "fool proof" one. Mac OS X likes  
> to treat FireWire external drives as if they belong to a logged-in  
> user, which means it often unmounts them when you log out. You  
> should be safe if you disconnect the A-B "network" cable before  
> rebooting A, and plug it back in when A has "taken" the drive  
> again. (That may be after logging in, if you have auto-login  
> disabled.)
>
> Cheers
>  -- perry
>
> --On August 27, 2005 10:34:59 PM -0700 Sims David  
> <dmsims at mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>
>> Hello,
>> I have two G4 gigabits networked via firewire.  Computer A has an
>> external firewire drive wired to it, that is used by both  
>> computers  for
>> backups. Computer B accesses the drive by connecting to A and   
>> mounting
>> it.
>>
>> Here is the problem....
>>
>> Often times, the external drive disappears from computer A's  
>> desktop.  It
>> does not show in the drive utility, but it does show up in system
>> profiler. Even when it is not accessible from computer A, computer  
>> B  can
>> mount it and use it.  If the firewire cord is unplugged and   
>> plugged back
>> in, the drive appears on computer A's desktop.
>>
>> Is there a way to get the drive accessible, without unplugging/re-
>> plugging the firewire cord?
>> Thanks,
>> David
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>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> -----
> Perry The Cynic                                              
> perry at cynic.org
> To a blind optimist, an optimistic realist must seem like an  
> Accursed Cynic.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> -----
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