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the weatherman · Jul 9, 2002, 10:13 AM

I have installed a new Sony 32x10x40 on my Blue and White. I initially placed this on a Que firewire cdrw case but unfortunately the firewire implementation on my machine is flaky whether I am in X or in 9, So I decided to connect it to the internal ATA bus and snaked the cable out of the case (from the back, in one of the PCI slots holes). It actually works great, and instead of using the internal power from the B&W I used the power from the case instead (which means I can turn it off).

So now the question I want to ask, is it safe to power off the drive while the computer is running? Or this set up is different from those in firewire cases that you can turn on and off anytime.

I am running 10.1.5, the drive works great, really fast and it actually is nice to have the two "internal" cds installed. For those who might ask about the drive's compatability in OS 9, unfortunately it is not.

Thank you in advance for any insight on this matter.

Paul S · Jul 10, 2002, 10:21 AM

I don't see a problem with turning it off.

For OS 9 compatibility, if you install Toast, that should make the machine recognize it. Toast has an extension called Toast CD Reader that let's burners be recognized as regular read drives.

the weatherman · Jul 10, 2002, 05:58 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Paul S:
I don't see a problem with turning it off.

For OS 9 compatibility, if you install Toast, that should make the machine recognize it. Toast has an extension called Toast CD Reader that let's burners be recognized as regular read drives.<hr /></blockquote>Yes you are right, I have Toast Titanium. But in my case it would hang on the first instance the 9.1 spalsh screen appears, this is in 9.1 (no parade of extensions). In 9.2 it will finish the boot process but will hang when the Finder appears.

So this is why I am asking to so I could try turning it off until it boots succesfully before turning it on. Just don't want to risk damaging the mobo while trying.

Thanks anyway!

CRASH HARDDRIVE · Jul 11, 2002, 10:35 PM

What you are seeking to do is essentially 'hot swap' a device plugged directly into your IDE channel.

Personally, I just plain wouldn't advise doing that.

I most certainly wouldn't power up the drive after the system has started, you're really asking to blow out your ATA controller. Powering the drive off after startup you might get away with, but I still wouldn't recommend it.

I'm not a hardware expert, but I'm fairly certain that controllers need to be built to a certain spec in order to have devices safely power on and off the channel (IE: Hot swapping) and I'm also fairly certain that a standard ATA controller doesn't meet this criteria. By powering the drive on suddenly, you're going to be sending a small surge of power onto the controller at an unpredicted time that will more than likely eventually damage it.

It's one of those things you *may* get away with 9 out of 10 times (like many of us, myself included, have to confess to hot plugging a SCSI device now and then-even though we were told a gazillion times never to do so-and getting away with it). But you have to know you're asking for trouble, and that 10th time the bullet could be in the chamber.

Also, just an aside, NEVER do what you describe with a hard drive. You can't 'unmount' a hard drive directly on the ATA controller and there's a great chance it won't spin down properly before being powered off. Even with firewire, you need to dismount a drive properly before unplugging it.

You shouldn't have the same problem with an optical drive, but again, I still wouldn't recommend this.

By the way, what�s wrong with your Firewire? If it�s not a faulty hardware issue, why not consider a complete system restore? Seems a bit of a waste of a firewire case for what you are doing.

the weatherman · Jul 12, 2002, 07:43 PM

Thanks! I think you are right. And I did try it to turn it on and off with the computer running. The system does not recognize it all the time (sometimes it shows up and sometimes it does not), so I guess the IDE/ATA controller is not hot swappable.
I kind of told myself just to shut it down if I need to boot in OS 9 (as what I have mentioned in the original post above).

The system itself is okay. I think it is a hardware issue (I did read sometime ago that certain Blue and Whites does indeed have issues with their firewire controllers). It has been flaky the very first time I used it with the original Que Cdrw and updates from OS 9 to 9.2 did'nt really solve the problem. I have to go through the routine of unplugging-replugigng and powering of and on the drive to make the system recognize it. And according to a technician I talked to (although I am not sure about the veracity of this), the firewire controllers of the G4s (and everything that came out after the B&W) had the controller built into the Mobo as opposed to the firewire controller of the B&Ws which is just an add on (it is not built into the Mobo), it sits beside the modem.

Anyway, thanks