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nemanirc · 05:31 PM

I have two Wester Digital 80 GB IDE drives attached to a Sonnet Tech Tempo 133 card. I am running OS 10.3.3 in a B&W tower upgraded with a 500 MHz G4 processor. Whenever I try any large file copies between them, to a 60 GB IBM sitting on the Sonnet Tech Tempo 66 card, to a firewire drive, or over a network, the operating system freezes (similar to the old OS 9 freezes where the mouse stops moving and nothing works, i.e., eject button, volume up and down). It happens with Finder copies and Retrospect Express 5.0. Generally, I can copy small batches of files, but when I try copies between 500 MB and 2 GB, it will freeze during the copy process. For instance, I was able to copy my iTunes library a few folders at a time, but it consistently crashed when I tried to copy the entire thing.

Any ideas?

Update: It just froze during a "Verify Permissions" exercise in Disk Copy. BTW, this is a fresh OS X install on a clean drive.

reader50 · May 16, 2004, 06:22 PM

Open Disk Utility and check the SMART status on each of the drives.

nemanirc · May 16, 2004, 07:05 PM

Originally posted by reader50:
Open Disk Utility and check the SMART status on each of the drives.

Both drives say: S.M.A.R.T. status : Verified

What does that mean?

reader50 · May 16, 2004, 09:14 PM

SMART is the drives' internal diagnostic routines. That message means the drives have not detected an internal failure.

An internal calibration error could cause large copies to fail while short operations are ok, but a good SMART message mostly rules that out. Next step, check with Sonnet to see if you have the latest drivers/firmware for each of your ATA cards. This could be a 10.3 issue, and Sonnet may have released updates to compensate.

Also, how are your drives jumpered? Is there more than one drive per channel?

nemanirc · May 16, 2004, 11:09 PM

The drives are both masters sitting on their own channels to the Sonnet card. I have updated both the cards with the current firmware. Both drives were wiped clean with new copies of OS X installed last week.

David Lee · May 18, 2004, 07:41 PM

For what it is worth, I used to have a B&W rev. 1 machine that had serious problems handling 2 PCI cards at once, which look like SCSI to the system. Try taking out the ATA 66 card, and check to see if the problem remains. If it disappears, that is the source of the issue and you can still use all you HDs by using the 2 WDs as Master - Slave, and the IBM as a Master on the other channel. (Careful there, switching the HD's connection to a different card may necessitate initialization as the speed - ATA mode - of the card is different).
This may not be the problem, but it sounds like it would be worth a try.
Good luck.

nemanirc · May 19, 2004, 05:29 PM

Originally posted by David Lee:
For what it is worth, I used to have a B&W rev. 1 machine that had serious problems handling 2 PCI cards at once, which look like SCSI to the system. Try taking out the ATA 66 card, and check to see if the problem remains. If it disappears, that is the source of the issue and you can still use all you HDs by using the 2 WDs as Master - Slave, and the IBM as a Master on the other channel. (Careful there, switching the HD's connection to a different card may necessitate initialization as the speed - ATA mode - of the card is different).
This may not be the problem, but it sounds like it would be worth a try.
Good luck.

I will give it a try�

nemanirc · May 22, 2004, 01:57 PM

Okay, I disconnected the extra PCI card (the Sonnet Tech ATA 66) and its associated hard drive. The two Western Digital 80 GB drives are master on their own channel on the Sonnet Tech ATA 133. So far, so good�

David Lee · May 23, 2004, 05:36 PM

So did disconnecting the other PCI card, the ATA66 card and the associated HD fix the problem? File tranfers OK now? For our peace of mind and future reference, please give us the results in more detail.
I also wonder if the power supply was involved, rather than just a PCI timing issue. Some older machines can not supply enough power to 3 HDs, some models in the Quicksilver series G4s have this limitation and I have seen it in a Blue and White at work, but other B&Ws have 3 HDs running with no problems. I had a Beige G3 that could handle 2 SCSI cards (including ATA cards) but not 3.
Best regards

nemanirc · May 23, 2004, 06:47 PM

The file transfers are okay again. I am able to do most of what I tried before (backup to/restore from Retrospect Express 5, file copy between hard drives in the B&W, file copy over network from B&W to PowerBook). I am a little frustrated because the way that the hard drives are laid out in the B&W, it is hard to get one to function as a "slave", since the ribbon cable looks like it was designed for stacked drives instead of side-by-side drives. So, I am operating with only two hard drives right now, but everything is working fine. And, I am backing up more regularly (for now).