[Folker]

greetings-
my G3 350 iMac is freezing (all but the mouse, which becomes inoperable, but will move) when i connect my USB lacie cd-rw to the machine's USB port. i've loaded the utilities and opened up Toast's 4.1, 5.o.1L, and 5 Titanium, all of which don't recognize the external cd-rw. i followed the directions that came with the lacie drive. any ideas on how i can get this thing worked out? i have a mac mini on the way and i want to transfer some files and things. thanks for your expertise.
steve

[badsey]

what model is this LaCie drive and are you getting your power from the USB 2.0 connection?

[Folker]

thank you badsey for the reply-
my LaCie drive is an older model that does firewire and usb 1.1. there is no specific model # on the drive itself and i can't find in the manual what the drive is specifically. this particular imac does not have firewire capability. i've tried to change extensions in extensions manager but to no avail. i've disabled the following:

disc burner ext.
authoring support ext.

additionally, i was told to disable these:
SDAP authoring supprot
USB authoring support
Firewire authoring support
but i could not find them. i found like-named extensions, but not word for word so i didn't disable. i could not find a SDAP authoring support extension anywhere. also, not one of my toast usb extensions is enabled, but i have tried various combinations but to no avail.

anything you can do would be huge-thanks for the time.

steve

[badsey]

usb 1.1

USB 1.0+1.1 has always been a disaster. I don't have an older Mac like you, but open up the app that shows what is running (processes) and what is taking up all the CPU cycles. My Windows machine struggled with a 512MB iPod shuffle with USB1.1 and here you are operating a hard-drive off of it.

LaCie - External Hard Drives, DVD±RW Drives, Monitors
-check for driver/software updates + see if they can help you

Is there anyway you can add a cheap USB 2.0 card to this Mac = the USB 1.1 drive will work much better on that eveen though it is not USB 2.0 = borrow somebody's USB 2.0 card

[seanc]

Doesn't that iMac have a network port?

Get a crossover cable hook the Mini and the iMac together and transfer your files over that way.

[Folker]

thanks for your help gents.

i'm not running the imac off the laCie, i just want to be able to copy files on to cd and put them on the mini. it used to work, then came babies, and then no time, and now that i'm out of the weeds so to speak, i'm not able to do it for whatever reason.

i'm assuming that a "crossover cable" is like an ethernet cable, or if not, it has the same type of connectors? do i have to get into "file sharing' and all of that stuff? i'll try the crossover method and cross my fingers.

much thanks for your time and advice, i appreciate it.

[seanc]

Yes a crossover is a type of ethernet cable. The wiring is slightly different inside so that it'll work between two computers.

Filesharing shouldn't be too difficult, we or google can help you.

[Folker]

thank you for the time. the mini is due any day and at that point i'll fire away with questions as needed. i really appreciate the help.