[Hap]

I recently purchased one of Maxtor's 80GB Firewire Drives and then waited anxiously for it to arrive. Well it arrived on the 18th of December and imagine my disappointment when it would not work (unlike my Firewire equipped Sony digital camcorder which works great). I hooked up the drive to my Imac installed the software from the CD rebooted and... Nothing happened. The machine started up fine but there was no Firewire Hard drive. Then I saw the drives light was not on. After an extended battle with the plug to situate it so that it would power the drive (any slight bend in the cord and the drive light would go off VERY UNSATISFYING) I rebooted. Still no drive I have since unplugged and plugged the Firewire cable and power cords a half dozen times apiece and scanned the Firewire buss with provided utility countless times only to be told that "no supported devices where found". It helpfully tells me to install the Firewire driver in my extension folder (which I had done hours ago) and that's it. The second light (the busy light?) has never come on and I had heard this drive was quite but I don't think it's ever made any noise period. I tried Maxtor's web site but offering me software that won't run on my machine (windows software) and asking me to run software I don't have (and Maxtor didn't give me) is useless. I really expected more from MAXTOR and I really want my cool new drive to work.

After having no luck getting the drive up and running I sent an email to Maxtor's support to get the drive replaced or better yet get mine running. I got a nice form letter early the next morning telling me that they had received my email and that it had been "forwarded to Maxtor's Technical Assistance for further review and response." and that I could expect a response "within two business days of their receipt."

Well that was over 8 days ago and still no response from Maxtor I realize that not all of those days have exactly been business days but come one. I am very unsatisfied and am on the verge of sending it back. I was hoping to write a glowing review of the drive but I can't even get the drives lights on.

Any advice would be welcome
Sincerely Hap Olsen

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I haven't lost my mind, it's backed up on tape somewhere.

I recently used a Maxtor 40GB drive with an ADS Tech Pyro FW Drive Kit, looks and works the same as the prepackaged Maxtor 80GB FW Drive). I had a similar problem at first. Then I read about a solution on another post board...
this person had found that if you boot up your Mac and start the drive while they ARE NOT CONNECTED, the plugging the drive into the FW port AFTER you see your regular desktop the drive will start humming and pop up soon after. You must do this everytime you start your computer but I've realized it recognizes the drive if you restart.
Hope this helps.

[Fredo]

I have the same situation with my EZQuest 30 GB Firewire HD. I boot my imac, and start the EZQuest before attaching via firewire. The EZQuest needs to be on for a couple of seconds or it won't show up on the desktop. To shut off, I drag the EZQuest icon to the trash, and disconnect the firewire before turning off power to the EZQuest. If I deviate from this proceedure, I crash. However, the on-off switch on the EZQuest definitly powers on, off, so you may have a problem getting power to your Maxtor as well. Hope this helps.

[Hap]

Thanks for the advice but that wasn't my problem. I finnaly called Maxtor and talked it over with them and then got a reply to my email to them a day or after that (I thought they said 2 bussiness days they must have meant 2 weeks instead) anyway I am going to hae to try to find a time when I can talk to them while fiddeling with my drive. It looks like I have a power supply problem or the drive is just dead.

Thanks again for your time and help
Hap

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I haven't lost my mind, it's backed up on tape somewhere.

[TECEN]

I have not tried this but I have seen other people recommend the Heat utilities for misbehaving FireWire drives. Here is the URL: http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=8796

I have ordered the same Maxtor drive. I hope I will have better luck but if not, I can return it to a local staples.

[TECEN]

The Maxtor 80gb FireWire drive works great with my 450 DP G4 w/ . I did not even try the maxtor software. I immediately used the HEAT Utilities firewire software and the drive has worked flawlessly. The performance utility showed a tranfers rate of 16MB/s for large files. We have captured around an hour of DV footage with no dropped frames. It was as easy as it is supposed to be.

[Hap]

Originally posted by TECEN:
The Maxtor 80gb FireWire drive works great with my 450 DP G4 w/ . I did not even try the maxtor software. I immediately used the HEAT Utilities firewire software and the drive has worked flawlessly. The performance utility showed a tranfers rate of 16MB/s for large files. We have captured around an hour of DV footage with no dropped frames. It was as easy as it is supposed to be.

Thanks for your reply. It's good to hear that it works that well. I had a bad power supply and Maxtor is sending me a replacement unit. Hopefully this new one will work as well as yours does. It was frustrating getting ahold of Maxtor but they where very helpfull once I was able to talk to them (waiting almost 2 weeks for a response to an email still doesn't impress me however).

I will let you know how the new Drive goes once I get it. Thanks for all your help
Hap

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I haven't lost my mind, it's backed up on tape somewhere.