I have a 3-year-old PowerComputing PowerTower Pro 250 (a PowerMac 9500 series clone) running Mac OS 9.0.4. I just installed the OrangeLink FireWire/USB PCI Board into my first PCI slot, and am now trying to connect two ProDirect FireSTOR 20GB external drives to the computer. The drives format beautifully (HFS Standard) with the included ProSoft Formedia program and drivers (v.1.7).

The problem is this: during heavy activity on the drives, I get system hangs that crash me time & time again. If I'm lucky enough not to crash, I have to unmount the FireWire drive(s) (which is then s-l-o-w -- over 30 seconds) so I can work on my local HD before restarting.

On restarting after one of these episodes, both Norton DiskDoctor and Alsoft's DiskWarrior report major directory structure damage on the FireWire drive(s). After I repair/rebuild these directory structures, I can use the drive(s) until this happens again.

I tried substituting Apple's FireWire 2.3.3 for the OrangeLink software -- no change. Now I'm wondering if I should delete the Formedia drivers and let the Mac OS initialize the drives again -- will they recognize such a drive?

What do you think the problem is?

[Axiom]

What about formatting using HFS+ (MacOS Extended) ? It's a better use of space on the drives, and may be what the manufacturer tested under...

Just a thought.