Clay
December 7th 03, 12:13 AM
I had a problem with my Western Digital 45 Gigabyte
FireWire Hard Drive after I had owned it just longer than
the 1 year warranty. I was using it back in forth
between my Windows based machinces and my and Mac G3
Laptop. I thought that the problem was self generated
from REFORMATING the Firewire HD excessively rather than
commiting to using one of my firewire HD's exclusively
for my Mac's G-4 & G-3 and my other exclusively for my
Windows machines.
Eventually the Western Digital (First Generation) 45
gig HD totally locked up and I could not use it in any
Operating System. The HD was already out of warranty, so
out of desperation I removed the Hard drive very
carefully from the firewire interface. (I do not
recommend this unless you are an OEM or very good with
Minature elctronics.) The point of all this is that I was
able to use Windows 98 to solve the original impossible
locked-up HD by formating the drive like a regular Hard
drive after tempotalily installing it in a bay of a Win98
Machine by simply formating it into one Fat 32
partition. After carefully reassembling the firewire
interface and the formatted HD together and pluging the
Firewire into the 1394 PCI Card in my Windows 98SE
machine like it was a brand new Firewire Drive and using
the original driver CD that came with it I was back in
business. I thought things were cool and even bounced
back and forth between the Mac Laptop and Windows
machines with only minimum problems. Fortunately I had
backed up the HD before it totally locked up again and
this time it would me to shut my system down when I
pluged it in.
HERE IS THE BOTTOM LINE. I EVENTUALLY REMOVED THE
45 GIG 5400 RPM HD THAT WAS CONTAINED IN THE FIREWIRE
CASE AND DISCOVERED THAT THE DRIVE WORKS FINE, BUT THE
INPUT SOCKETS OF THE 1394 FIREWIRE INTERFACE HAD
BASICALLY WORN OUT. I CONFIRMED ONE HAD "shorts and
opens" WITH A METER AND THE OTHER WAS A HIT OR MISS
PROPOSITION (with continuity) JUST LIKE THE DRIVE WAS
WHEN IT WAS ALTOGETHER AT THE END. (Either it was not
there to be recognized or it forced a shut down.) SO I
RECOMMEND THAT YOU TRY THE FIREWIRE H.D. OUT ON OTHER
COMPUTERS RUNNING WINDOWS XP/98/2000 AND EVEN A MAC TO
SEE IT THE PROBLEM CONTINUES FROM ONE OS TO ANOTHER. IF
IT DOES> I recommend that If you have a friend who is an
electrician who doesn't mine checking for short or opens
on the firewire connectors that will confirm or deny the
suspected conection firewire plugs. If it is the plugs
you might be able to salvage it by replacing them before
the plugs totally go or by isolating the connection from
any more movement at all. Investing in a better quality
connection wire and utilizing the 2nd input connector
that you may have not used that much on the Firewire
Drive may also work.
I have had no problem with my Maxtor Firewire HD that
I never move and the problems that I was having with my
firewire DV CAM stopped when I invested in a better
quality Berklin Firewire 3 Meter Wire that didn't come
with the camera and is also long enough that I do not
have to strain myself or the wire to connect it. IN FACT
I LEAVE IT CONNECTED TO THE BACK OF MY COMPUTER I am now
very gentle when I have to plug or unplug any firewire
device at the other end.
I hope that simply a new & longer FireWire & firewire
conector plug if needed will save you from losing the use
of a costly Firewire HD.
Good Luck,
Clay
>-----Original Message-----
>I have used Easy CD Creator from ROXIO to convert my CD
>collection to digital files. I keep my mp3 files on a
>firewire hard disk drive. I have experienced no problem
>for over a year.
>A few weeks ago Windows xp showed signs of instability
>when converting music CDs to mp3 files and saving them
to
>my firewire disk drive. After several "forced to close"
>episodes I check the ROXIO site and installed an update
>that is supposed to solve the problem. I still have the
>problem.
>Now, if I even attach the firewire drive to my computer
>it forces a reboot. There is an obvious conflict. I used
>device manager to uninstall the firewire disk and then
>reconnect the disk in order to reinstall it, but I have
>not had any success. Since the disk is the only firewire
>peripheral except for my camera, it's difficult to find
>anything wrong.
>Any suggestions?
>.
>
FireWire Hard Drive after I had owned it just longer than
the 1 year warranty. I was using it back in forth
between my Windows based machinces and my and Mac G3
Laptop. I thought that the problem was self generated
from REFORMATING the Firewire HD excessively rather than
commiting to using one of my firewire HD's exclusively
for my Mac's G-4 & G-3 and my other exclusively for my
Windows machines.
Eventually the Western Digital (First Generation) 45
gig HD totally locked up and I could not use it in any
Operating System. The HD was already out of warranty, so
out of desperation I removed the Hard drive very
carefully from the firewire interface. (I do not
recommend this unless you are an OEM or very good with
Minature elctronics.) The point of all this is that I was
able to use Windows 98 to solve the original impossible
locked-up HD by formating the drive like a regular Hard
drive after tempotalily installing it in a bay of a Win98
Machine by simply formating it into one Fat 32
partition. After carefully reassembling the firewire
interface and the formatted HD together and pluging the
Firewire into the 1394 PCI Card in my Windows 98SE
machine like it was a brand new Firewire Drive and using
the original driver CD that came with it I was back in
business. I thought things were cool and even bounced
back and forth between the Mac Laptop and Windows
machines with only minimum problems. Fortunately I had
backed up the HD before it totally locked up again and
this time it would me to shut my system down when I
pluged it in.
HERE IS THE BOTTOM LINE. I EVENTUALLY REMOVED THE
45 GIG 5400 RPM HD THAT WAS CONTAINED IN THE FIREWIRE
CASE AND DISCOVERED THAT THE DRIVE WORKS FINE, BUT THE
INPUT SOCKETS OF THE 1394 FIREWIRE INTERFACE HAD
BASICALLY WORN OUT. I CONFIRMED ONE HAD "shorts and
opens" WITH A METER AND THE OTHER WAS A HIT OR MISS
PROPOSITION (with continuity) JUST LIKE THE DRIVE WAS
WHEN IT WAS ALTOGETHER AT THE END. (Either it was not
there to be recognized or it forced a shut down.) SO I
RECOMMEND THAT YOU TRY THE FIREWIRE H.D. OUT ON OTHER
COMPUTERS RUNNING WINDOWS XP/98/2000 AND EVEN A MAC TO
SEE IT THE PROBLEM CONTINUES FROM ONE OS TO ANOTHER. IF
IT DOES> I recommend that If you have a friend who is an
electrician who doesn't mine checking for short or opens
on the firewire connectors that will confirm or deny the
suspected conection firewire plugs. If it is the plugs
you might be able to salvage it by replacing them before
the plugs totally go or by isolating the connection from
any more movement at all. Investing in a better quality
connection wire and utilizing the 2nd input connector
that you may have not used that much on the Firewire
Drive may also work.
I have had no problem with my Maxtor Firewire HD that
I never move and the problems that I was having with my
firewire DV CAM stopped when I invested in a better
quality Berklin Firewire 3 Meter Wire that didn't come
with the camera and is also long enough that I do not
have to strain myself or the wire to connect it. IN FACT
I LEAVE IT CONNECTED TO THE BACK OF MY COMPUTER I am now
very gentle when I have to plug or unplug any firewire
device at the other end.
I hope that simply a new & longer FireWire & firewire
conector plug if needed will save you from losing the use
of a costly Firewire HD.
Good Luck,
Clay
>-----Original Message-----
>I have used Easy CD Creator from ROXIO to convert my CD
>collection to digital files. I keep my mp3 files on a
>firewire hard disk drive. I have experienced no problem
>for over a year.
>A few weeks ago Windows xp showed signs of instability
>when converting music CDs to mp3 files and saving them
to
>my firewire disk drive. After several "forced to close"
>episodes I check the ROXIO site and installed an update
>that is supposed to solve the problem. I still have the
>problem.
>Now, if I even attach the firewire drive to my computer
>it forces a reboot. There is an obvious conflict. I used
>device manager to uninstall the firewire disk and then
>reconnect the disk in order to reinstall it, but I have
>not had any success. Since the disk is the only firewire
>peripheral except for my camera, it's difficult to find
>anything wrong.
>Any suggestions?
>.
>