[chris v]

I bought the empty firewire kit that you can stuff an IDE drive into, so I could use my old maxtor 20 GB that shipped in my Cube as an external drive after replacing it with a new IBM 60GB Deskstar (nice drive BTW!).

I left the jumpers set for "master," stuffed it in the box, plugged it in, and up it popped. For a while. I was able to copy all my files from it to the new drive no prob, and I had backed up before proceding to do any of this, so no data was lost. (cautionary tale here, folks)

However, after a few re-starts, and over the course of about three hours, the Maxtor drive in the Firewire box started getting weird. It locked up while I was trying to read from it, forcing a restart. Upon restart, it mounted, but locked the machine up as soon as I clicked on the drive icon. Upon third restart, it was gone.

No utility that I own can now see the drive, so I can't mount it to reformat it.

The only instructions that came with the enclosure pertained solely to setting up a brand-new drive and formatting from scratch. There was no documentation informing me that I needed to update any drivers on an already formatted drive, and as I didn't really want to wipe it, I didn't see that as neccessary, since it mounted straight up, although that may be the problem.

The only tech support the company has is a web page FAQ list, and a voice mail system, where I've already left a message, but I'm waiting to hear back.

Anybody hereabouts have any ideas?

Thanks,
CV

[waffffffle]

I've had tons of problems with my pyro enclosure. I really feel like I should have bought a different enclosure. My drive is pretty sketchy. Recently it refused to mount for 2 days. I carried it over to a G4 at a cluster and it mounted fine, brought it back to my room and it worked like it used to. However I must admit I've been screwing with the thing. I unplugged the fan inside because it's so damn loud. I wasn't able to sleep with the thing on at night in my room. My computer was silent and the drive wasn't bad either but the fan was noisy as hell. Also the front cover now refuses to stay on my case so I have it tapped on with a lot of scotch tape. I like to transport the drive a lot. I should have just gotten myself a normal firewire drive because the case cost me $130 and the 20GB Maxtor I have cost me $100 from CompUSA when I bought it. For a little more I could have gotten a real drive, and nowadays an even bigger drive for a lot less, but I needed the space since my pismo only has 6GB. I should find myself a nice 30GB internal.

[indigo]

chris-
I also just got the ADS Pyro Drive kit. I put a 20 GB Maxtor Diamondmax plus into it to use with my rev. 1 BW G3. Needless to say, the transition has been less than smooth. First of all, I'm on my 4th maxtor drive in about 18 months. After a couple of months, the turn up dead and make repeated clicking noises when the computer tries to access the disk. If this is the case with your HD (you may have to wait up to 30 minutes before you hear the clicking), I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it has passed on to that great big hard drive heaven. It should be under warranty from maxtor though.

The first thing I would try is to reinstall the firewire controllers. Somehow along the way, mine were corrupted. Reinstalling helped fix one problem (I had several others too ).

I've had trouble using the Apple drivers on my firewire drive. At first, I formatted the drive with disk drive set up while it was in my BW and then I put it into the case. This really wasn't a good setup. I eventually installed the Hard Disk speed tool drivers. These proved to be better than the Apple Drivers, but still not great. I would get frequent messages that the Firewire drive had stopped responding.
A post over at the Macfixit forums turned me on to Heat utilities. These drivers helped decrease the frequency of the firewire problems on my BW. It still occurs occasionally, but now I can unplug and re-plug the device without being stuck in a freeze.

If none of that works, you could try throwing the Maxtor back in the Cube. That might help you determine if it is a firewire/Pyro problem versus a hard drive problem. The cube supports firewire booting according to this Apple TIL, so you could try putting the IBM in the Pyro and boot from it. Again, that might help you isolate the problem as a software versus a hardware problem.

I hope you are able to find some useful information buried deep within my rambling. Let me know how you make out.

On another note, is the fan on you Pyro kit very loud? Mine is. I'm thinking about sending it back.
Good luck!

[chris v]

Well, it's not a firewire problem, I don't think, because I've got a Maxtor 40 GB external drive that's fine, and my CD burner is fine, too. I brought it to work this AM and the tower here doesn't see it either. Unfortunately, the ADS tech support guy called back while I was at lunch (d@*n Murphy's law!)

No weird clicking noises, and it sounds like it spins up just fine.

I suppose what I'll do next is pop the second internal drive out of the Tower, and stick it in there to see if the drive is still good on an IDE bus, but that's gonna be a pain, so I've been trying to put it off, hoping for an easier route. Does anyone know the pin configuration to set the Maxtor 20GB (shipped stock in 450 Cube) for slave?

Yes, it's NOISY, but that's why I replaced the drive in the Cube in the first place. But with the fan, it's about 50% worse. Even if I get it up and running, I'll probably leave it off most of the time.

CV

[chris v]

FINALLY got a tech support call-back after TWO DAYS, but it looks like they're gonna warranty the box. Doesn't seem to have anything to do with drivers, or firewire extensions. We'll see how the replacement process goes...

Still wondering if anybody knows how to jumper my Maxtor 20GB (stock 450 Cube drive) to configure it for slave, so I can stick it in the Tower.

CV

[Paul S]

Chris,
You should be able to get the jumper settings from Maxtor's site. Just find the model number written on the drive, and search for that. They should have a chart with all the possible settings available.

[indigo]

Try this pin setting on your Maxtor to set it to slave:

x J J J J
x x x x x

Where J = your jumper
x = free pin

this info can also be found by going to Maxtor.

[This message has been edited by indigo (edited 05-23-2001).]

[chris v]

Originally posted by indigo:
Try this pin setting on your Maxtor to set it to slave:

x J J J J
x x x x x

Where J = your jumper
x = free pin

this info can also be found by going to Maxtor.

I figured I could find it eventually, if I looked at maxtor's site, but asking here was so much easier! Plus, now you get that warm, fuzzy, helpful feeling

Thanks,

CV

[indigo]

You know, it did make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside .

Keep us posted on how the replacement case works out. I'm still trying to overcome my non responding drive in the Pyro kit. I just reinstalled OS 9.1. I'm hoping that will help, but I'm not holding my breath. Once I get that all figured out, I'll try to quiet that 747 that they have enclosed within my case.

[CyberDave]

My Pyro drive kit got sent off for warranty repair on Tuesday. It sounds like it had the same basic problem as you guys are describing. Whenever I plugged it in (with a CD-RW, DVD-ROM, or HD), it would lock my Mac up until I unplugged it and things would return to normal. Good thing it was still under warranty. Tech support said something about upgrading to the latest board...

CyberDave