[G4] External Drives Not Mounting

[John Baltutis]

On 11/27/06, John Niven <senseamp at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> At 10:41 AM -0800 11/27/06, John Niven wrote:
>> >I too have just found out I have this problem :-(
>> >
>> >Anway, I've tried the programmers reset, the Open
>> >firmware reset, the Option-Command-P-R reset, and
>> >even replaced the PRAM battery.
>> >
>> >I do not believe that the firewire ports are dead.
>> >I believe that my firmware is corrupted. So the question
>> >is "How do you verify that the firmware is correct,
>> >and how do you re-flash it if it's wrong?"

> --- Steve Goldstein <sng at cox.net> wrote:
>
>> Silly question(s): did you try another FW cable just
>> to make sure that your cable is still good, and does
>> the external drive have its own power supply instead
>> of attempting to suck juice from the computer?

> There are NO silly questions!
>
> But yes I have two cables and the same drive works
> fine with the almost identical G4 I have at work (it
> is firewire powered). Also works fine with my wifes
> Intel iMac (how come they get the new Macs?)
>
> This is obviously a problem with the G4 design, since
> so much has been written about its "solution". I'd
> like to focus on the question of how one re-builds the
> firmware. When it was all just in a ROM then I think
> it was bomb-proof, but when it's in FLASH....

You launch System Profiler and check the version. Once it's updated, you can't
redo it.

Obviously, it's not a G4 design problem, since it works on the other G4 and
three ext FWHDs and two FW burners work on my 6-yr old G4, 450 MP.