[peter.sugarcube]

I recently got a Lacie D2 drive but it's lacking the driver disc. I'm trying to get it connected via FW800 to a Powerbook G4 1.25 and connect a Canon camcorder to the drive (FW400), but the Powerbook fails to notice anything when you look in the System Profiler for Firewire saying "No Information Available" with Final Cut Pro also freezing.

The drive works fine on it's own but when i've video work to do, it just doesn't seem to want to play ball.

Does it need the driver disc / Silver Lining to be installed that i Didn't get with the drive? I've checked on Lacie.com and they only have updates for it so if anyone knows where it can be downloaded from (if it can) that would be good.

Cheers!

[-Q-]

It shouldn't require a driver at all. Maybe you're overloading the power supply? Does the D2 require plugging in or are you powering it via the FW cable? If it's the FW cable, you may be exceeding the power capabilities of the FW port...

[peter.sugarcube]

It has it's own power supply so nothing is being powered by any FW ports. I'm only wondering is it an issue with the Powerbook, as it's a bit of a pain not being able to use it really in the way I was hoping to.

I find it odd that when FW800 and FW400 both are connected to devices, the Firewire panel in System Profiler gives nothing.

And I forgot to say - when an iPod is also plugged in with the drive, the iPod isn't picked up at all but it will charge.

[Tenacious Dyl]

perhaps the powerbook will only want to let you chain fw 800's with other 800's, and chain only 400's with other 400's. the iPod charging shows you have power in the lines, just no signal. Perhaps the powerbook thinks you have two 800 devices, but because only one is 800 it considers the whole line invalid... as though its getting signal from one 800 device, but its getting signal from the 800 and 400, and it considers that mixed signal invalid because it doesn't distinguish them as different devices.

advice: contact apple support one way or another, and drive using seperate ports for seperate firewire speed... unless you only have one port :-\

[peter.sugarcube]

Originally posted by Tenacious Dyl:
perhaps the powerbook will only want to let you chain fw 800's with other 800's, and chain only 400's with other 400's. the iPod charging shows you have power in the lines, just no signal. Perhaps the powerbook thinks you have two 800 devices, but because only one is 800 it considers the whole line invalid... as though its getting signal from one 800 device, but its getting signal from the 800 and 400, and it considers that mixed signal invalid because it doesn't distinguish them as different devices.

advice: contact apple support one way or another, and drive using seperate ports for seperate firewire speed... unless you only have one port :-\

I've tried it on both - the Camera/iPod on FW400 with the drive still spinning connected through FW800. There's only one other combination I haven't tried, that's to put the LaCie drive onto FW400 and chain the camera off that to see if that does anything.

I haven't installed nor do I have the Silverlining software that seems to be required, according to the manual, to chain the camera off the drive, but then I can't imagine it needing drivers or anything as already noted above.

[aaanorton]

Humor me for a sec... Try connecting the drive like this: Power cable 1st, then FW 800.

[peter.sugarcube]

That's the way it's been done - always power first then connect them. Even tried plugging everything in from being switched off and still get the same error. Looks like Apple Care time...

[Tenacious Dyl]

No, this shouldn't be LaCie drivers... I used to have a LaCie D2 external firewire harddrive too, as well as a LaCie D2 CD-R/RW 58x/24x/54x drive. I was able to plug the harddrive into my powerbook, then the burner to the harddrive, and finally my ipod to my burner with no problems. I never used more than 3 devices however. And I never installed any LaCie drivers.

I can no longer test combinations for you though, as the only firewire device I now have is my Seagate External Drive.

Just check out apple's support online and if you get nothing, call if you still have calling for free!

[peter.sugarcube]

After much playing about, the D2 drive will now have a iPod connected to it and it will identity if and run when daisychained like that.

When iPod is connected directly to the FW400 port, and D2 drive in the FW800 port, the iPod wont work.

So I thought i'd try the camera, and no. It still freezes the app thats trying to get it it through the D2 drive. Which I don't seem to understand.

So it doesn't appear to be a powerbook problem, but something with the drive or the camera itself :/

[Spheric Harlot]

Is your drive updated to the latest firmware?

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14069

That fixed a lot of problems people were having with Panther and LaCie drives.


Also, check to see that you really have Apple's drivers installed on the disk, and not LaCie's Silverlining. (The only way to change this AFAIK is to reformat the disk using Disk Utility.)

I have read of problems with LaCie's own drivers when using the disk for audio. Different problem, but you never know.


-s*

[peter.sugarcube]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Is your drive updated to the latest firmware?

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14069

That fixed a lot of problems people were having with Panther and LaCie drives.


Also, check to see that you really have Apple's drivers installed on the disk, and not LaCie's Silverlining. (The only way to change this AFAIK is to reformat the disk using Disk Utility.)

I have read of problems with LaCie's own drivers when using the disk for audio. Different problem, but you never know.


-s*

The drive is up to the latest firmware. However the machine was sitting at 10.3.3. I updated it to 10.3.4 and it all seems (at the moment) to work. However I have to run iChat first and click to view my video, then run FCP whilst it's running and it'll work fine. If I just run FCP without, it bombs out.

Odd but at least i've a solution!

[Tim Kosch]

Originally posted by peter.sugarcube:
After much playing about, the D2 drive will now have a iPod connected to it and it will identity if and run when daisychained like that.

When iPod is connected directly to the FW400 port, and D2 drive in the FW800 port, the iPod wont work.

So I thought i'd try the camera, and no. It still freezes the app thats trying to get it it through the D2 drive. Which I don't seem to understand.

So it doesn't appear to be a powerbook problem, but something with the drive or the camera itself :/

I just received my LaCie 250 GB d2 hard drive extreme (external with FW 400 and FW 800). I first connected it to my 1.25 GHz AlBook via FW 800 to copy some video files over. No problemo!

Next I connected it to my dual 2.0 GHz G5 via FW 800. The drive didn't mount. I have my iPod connected to one of the FW 400 ports and my Canon ZR-85 connected to the other FW 400. When the camera is on (and connected to either FW 400 port, I tried both) the hard drive does not respond. It is stuck in its current condition (mounted, unmounted, file window open, etc.). The minute I turn off my camera everything works. This happens whether the camera is on the record or playback mode.

On LaCie's website they say...

Problem - I get dropped frames when capturing video from my camera to the FireWire drive.

Cameras run at 200Mbit speed. FireWire Mass storage devices run at 400Mbit. If both types of devices are connected to the same FireWire bus, it can cause disruption and dropped frames. If you are experiencing dropped frames keep the two types of devices on separate busses.Also, older cameras may have a timing issue that will continuously reset the bus. This can cause error messages or a crash. You would need to run the two devices off of separate FireWire busses if you experience this problem. Other things to try:

In OS 9:

* Turn off FileSharing
* Turn off AppleTalk
* Turn off Virtual Memory
* Update Quicktime 5 to v5.0.2
* Update Final Cut Pro if possible

In OS X:

If using Final Cut Pro make the following settings in the Final Cut Pro Preferences:

* Media Capture location - Firewire drive
* Waveform/Thumbnail Cache location - Internal Harddrive (startup disk)
* Autosave Vault - Internal harddrive (startup disk)

etc., etc., etc.

I don't have a problem with dropped frames its just that I wanted to use the external FW drive for storing video and audio (Pro Tools). If I can't use the camera (as an analog/digital converter) at the same time I use the external hard drive that defeats its purpose. The obvious work around is having all the video go to the G5's internal hard drive but I rather not have to do that.

So are the FW 400s and FW 800 all on the same bus? If I buy a FireWire card (not that I want to) any guesses if it will work?

Tim

p.s. the one postive thing I guess is the drive does work.