[Euphrates]

Well, I was just about to shut down and went through my usual routine of quitting all my programs. All quits had been made, and I hit shut down in the "special" menu, just like usual. I could hear the computer go through its usual pre-shutdown ritual, and then a message appeared on the screen. The message was only there for a second but I had seen it once before. The basic jist of it is "The firewire drive is not connecting, fix it or risk doing something to the drive." Has anyone seen it before? It's a dialog box that looks like it could've been from system 1.2 or something (I don't know what sys 1.2 looked like or if it even existed, but you know what I mean). It didn't have any icon in it, just text. The last time that happened, I unplugged my firewire drive from the comp, turned it off, turned it on and plugged it in again and all was well. I haven't been able to get this drive to mount since.

I would like to mention that I have a beige G3 333MHz with a Western digital Drive and WD firewire PCI card. I don't have any free disk utilities, so if someone could recommened any free programs that could test and fix the drive and if not what commercial program I should look into getting? What would be even better is if someone had a trick to plug it in in a certain way or some other trick like that to make it work, but that seems unlikely. Thanks in advance, all.

PS: Is there an ATA drive or something inside the external casing that could be put inside my computer or something?

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

I'd start with the simplest things first. Try re-installing the Firewire drivers. Also try updating the Firewire drivers.. I'm using Firewire 2.7 or 2.8 on my systems with OS 9.1 with no problems with either. You may want to try something as simple as trying another Firewire cable with the drive. Maybe yours has gone bad. (Unlikly, but possible).

If none of the easy stuff works, assume it's a hardware problem.

If the problem is hardware, Possily,you may have burned out either the ATA to Firewire bridge in the external case, or the Firewire PCI card may have gone kaput.

If you can, test the drive on another machine with Firewire, and test another firewire device with your Mac's PCI card. Whichever doesn't work is the obvious culprit.

You can salvage the internal HD out of the Firewire case easily. Just unscrew the case, take out the drive by unscrewing it's mounts (probably on the bottom or side brackets) unhook the power connector and IDE cable. (I'm assuming it's an IDE drive not SCSI, most external Firewire drives are).

You can then pop the drive in either another external Firewire enclosure, or directly in your Mac on any open IDE channel as a Master or Slave device. (it'll be jumpered to master in the FW case)

Of course, it could simply be that the HD itself went kablooey. Listen to it when you power it up. Does it make out of the ordinary clicking noises? Rattle? Make rotary-phone-like spin and click noises? (All baaad signs.)

If the drive itself is bad, then chances are good you have a perfectly fine Firewire external case, that just needs a new HD installed in it.

[ 08-25-2001: Message edited by: CRASH HARDDRIVE ]

[Euphrates]

Thanks for the reply, Crash. That was one of the most elegantly detailed responses I've ever gotten. I've tried the only other firewire device I have, a CDRW drive, and it isn't recognized, but it's performance on my PCI card has always been extremely flaky. The hard drive doesn't make sounds that sound particularly peculiar (pretty much what I remember it always doing). What I'm gonna do is wait for my new quicksilver to come, at which point I'll be able to test whether I should salvage the drive out of the firewire bridge or something. Thanks again for the response and any further suggestions would be helpful (such as helpful tips for testing, including any software I might be able to use to test)!