[ligux]

I´ve just bought an Archos 20Gb Firewire HD, and it seems that it is not a hot plug in device as firewire is said to be, to get the icon I have to reset it at least twice. Know sthg. about it? Am I doin´sthg. wrong?
would appreciate help.

Try the following:
1) Boot normally. Hold down command - option - O (as in the letter o) - F once you are up and running. This will probably bring up a Sherlock window, but it does re-poll the Firewire bus and may being up your drive.
2) Once you get the firewire drive mounted at any point, make a new folder called "Mount Firewire" and then place an alias of it in your Startup Items folder BUT rename it zzzMount Firewire.

In the normal mac boot sequence, Firewire devices show up LAST after your start-up items have executed.

If you need further troubleshooting, you will have to let us know what model of mac you are running and the version of the drivers that came with your Firewire drive. There is usually an Extension and a Control Panel.

[ligux]

Thank you for your help.
I still have to reset it twice to get the icon but now I will try your instructions to see what happens (hope nothing wrong). By the way only comes with an Extension file.

[Misha]

Purchasing a utility like Storage Master should fix the problem, but it will set you back some $$, too. Unfortunately, since lots of FireWire drives seem to have this problem. I believe it lies in the quality of the ATA->FireWire bridge that's in the drive. I've had this happen to me with a Fantom Drives drive, but both Western Digital and VST drives work flawlessly.