[X4U] LaCie Hard drive troubles

[John F. Richardson]

Hello,

A. Backup often
B. Buy Data recovery software and LEARN how to use it. BUY more than one.

The following are just ramblings.

I don't use firewire drives. Only USB 2.0 drives.

Note: The drive in a firewire enclosure is an IDE drive. It can't be faster
than the IDE drive. There was a recent post on performance degredation when
a SATA is put in a Firewire enclosure.

So, where do you use firewire? Well, where it won't ever annoy you.
1) Your video camera connection to the Mac
2) EyeTV (video capture) or similar
3) Special purpose FW800 drives for high speed data transfer. These devices
seem to have a dedicated purpose and seem to cost more and be part of server
systems, scientific configurations and backups,...

Number 1 and 2 above won't annoy you. If you have a working video camera
with a good digital tape or analog tape you probably won't have any issue
with data integrity. There is no "video camera doctor" software available
after you dropped it the third time. THAT IS WHY YOU HAVE A CAMERA STRAP.
Maybe a cleaning cartridge......

Number 3 is a commercial/industrial use of the drive. So the assumption is
that you spent more money on data transfer software, the drive and the
enclosure, plus USEFUL support.

John F. Richardson