[kevs]

I doubt anyone can help, but I know the party line I'll get from Lacie -- that I'm the only one with the problem.

In nutshell -- love the d2 drives and the Porsche look cool and a bit cheaper, but I got 2, 250 gb drives a month ago and both had problems mounting -- would not mount reliably and consistently.

I returned them, and this week I got a couple of 40GB mobile drives. I figured that was a fluke. They look great, but have the same exact problem? Is it just me and Porsche? I'm baffled.

[analogika]

Short answer:

Because the Porsche enclosures suck.

I am having the same problem intermittently with mine, and just about everybody I know that has a Porsche drive sees this, as well.

FWIW, I have never seen this problem in either of my two d2 drives (one standard Firewire 400, the other a Triple Extreme), nor have I ever heard of it happening with those drives.

Unfortunately, you get what you pay for.

[kevs]

God bless you Analogika; I though I'm going crazy.

Tell me, tell me tell me!
what does an enclosure have to do with it?

Weird thing:
if I unmount the porsche drive, and then plug in the firewire cable to the same brand new drive, it wont mount.

BUT.......................................
IF I then plug the cord into the other brand new Porsche drive I just bought that one will mount. and if I repeat that cycle and rotate and keep unmounting one and plugging into the other, everything mounts ok.

But if i just stay on the same drive, the consistency whacks out.
It's like the drive is saying to me" nope, you just dealt with me, go to another drive and come back later"

[kikkoman]

I've read some issues about these enclousures. More specifically the power supplies not supplying enough current for some drives can cause some symptomns you've described. Do a search on macintouch or macfixit.

[kevs]

Actually, the ones I just got don't have a seperate power supply is that's what you are referring to.

[analogika]

They don't?

All the Porsche drives I've seen have a line lump.

Apart from that, I don't know what's causing the issues - whether it's power supply electronics within the enclosure, or a flaky firewire bridge, or a combination of the two...

[ism]

Well fingers crossed so far my Porsche drive is ok (320Gb desktop one). But, I recently bought a firewire enclosure to put the quite new (replacement) harddrive from my imacG3 in (since it died). I really struggled fitting the thing in and making the connections up in the room available since the case was quite tight around the drive. BUT the case is massive compared to the Porsche casing. So I'm not suprised theres a few issues with the Porsche casings, everything must be really tight in there, perhaps too tight.

[hondo]

I have the same problem with a 160 GB version that I have been using. I have lost data twice because the drive suddenly is not recognized and won't mount. I ultiimately had to reformat the drive before it would work again.