[tadd]

Hi, I have a Maxtor 80GB Firewire external HD. It doesn't come up at all on OS 9 and booting with it in OS X results in a drive is unreadable, continue with it, erase it, or eject it dialog. I have done continue and eject but can't get it to show.
OS X's drive utility shows it as a volume with no partition.
DIskWarrior (latest version) doesn't show it at all.
Norton (latest version) doesn't show it at all.

Norton may let me manually choose it but I haven't had much luck with that yet. OS X terminal may let me mount it but I need to know what /dev to use.

My theory is that the partition map got hosed. DiskWarrior says that it won't work with a bad partition map.

Any ideas on how to fix this? I just want the data from the drive. Even just SOME of the data would be an improvement.

Thanks for any help. Feel free to email me or what.
Tadd

[Macola]

Originally posted by tadd:
<STRONG>Hi, I have a Maxtor 80GB Firewire external HD. It doesn't come up at all on OS 9 and booting with it in OS X results in a drive is unreadable, continue with it, erase it, or eject it dialog. I have done continue and eject but can't get it to show.
OS X's drive utility shows it as a volume with no partition.
DIskWarrior (latest version) doesn't show it at all.
Norton (latest version) doesn't show it at all.

Norton may let me manually choose it but I haven't had much luck with that yet. OS X terminal may let me mount it but I need to know what /dev to use.

My theory is that the partition map got hosed. DiskWarrior says that it won't work with a bad partition map.

Any ideas on how to fix this? I just want the data from the drive. Even just SOME of the data would be an improvement.

Thanks for any help. Feel free to email me or what.
Tadd</STRONG>

Welcome to the world of Maxtor Firewire drives! It's quite likely that your Firewire bridge is dead as well as the drivers being corrupted (that happened to me after numerous problems). The only thing you can do is to remove the drive from the case and see if it mounts as an internal (IDE) drive (assuming you have a desktop machine). Good luck.

[tadd]

Thanks Macola.
Hmm.. is it a clue that the OS X Disk Utility sees the disk? This would make me think that there is no hardware problem. I actually have two of the Maxtor 80GB firewire drives so it is not a bad strategy that I swap the two disks. I'll do this eventually.

Originally posted by Macola:
<STRONG>

Welcome to the world of Maxtor Firewire drives! It's quite likely that your Firewire bridge is dead as well as the drivers being corrupted (that happened to me after numerous problems). The only thing you can do is to remove the drive from the case and see if it mounts as an internal (IDE) drive (assuming you have a desktop machine). Good luck.</STRONG>

[Macola]

Originally posted by tadd:
<STRONG>Thanks Macola.
Hmm.. is it a clue that the OS X Disk Utility sees the disk? This would make me think that there is no hardware problem.
</STRONG>

That's a good sign. I had that happen intermittently, but then the bridge died shortly thereafter. I assume that running First Aid, or using the Mount command in Disk Utility didn't help?

[tadd]

Yes, tried First Aid. Mount only works on partitions that it recognizes as being mountable. Apparently it has decided that the Maxtor is not mountable.

What is the chance that Norton or DiskWarrior could recover files if I let the mac partition the disk?

Originally posted by Macola:
<STRONG>

That's a good sign. I had that happen intermittently, but then the bridge died shortly thereafter. I assume that running First Aid, or using the Mount command in Disk Utility didn't help?</STRONG>

[Macola]

Originally posted by tadd:
<STRONG>
What is the chance that Norton or DiskWarrior could recover files if I let the mac partition the disk?
</STRONG>

Partitioning is destructive, so if you partitioned the disk now, it would wipe out your data. I wouldn't risk it. Your other option (if using the drive internally doesn't help) may be to try a data recovery service like Drivesavers.