[Ellis Vener]

Greetings!

A few days ago I updated from 10.3.7 to 10.3.. when the computer (A G4 733 MHZ Quicksilver) I immediately noticed that my #4 internal drive, connected via Sonnet Tempo ATA 133 PCI card was missing from the desktop. i called Sonnet and was advised to trash the extensions.kextcache & extentions.mkext files from the OS X System> Library folder along with the folders com.apple.kernalcaches & com.apple.romextentions folders in the OS X System > Library >Caches folder.

This seemed to work. On restarting I could see and access the missing drive but when iwentto copy a folder to it I got the "Spinning Pizza Wheel of Death" for about 5-15 minutes so I then force restarted.

Called Sonnet again and this time was told that I just needed to delete the extensions.kextcache & extentions.mkext files not the others. the tech also recommended rebooting in in OS 9.2 and see if the errat drive showed up that way but to no avail.

So I have a hard drive I know is spinning but isn't connecting with the rest of the machine.

I am trying to diagnose where or what the failure might be: has the HDD crashed? Is the problem an incompatability with OS 10.3.8 and the Sonnet Tempo card?


My current thinking is to shut own and reconnect the HDD to either an internal connection I know is working or to possiibly to take the HDD out and install it in a case as an external Firewire drive. What are the possible potential problems with either of these approaches?

The HDD in question is a backup disk and not a boot or program disk. And fortunately any data on this disk is also on at least two other HDDs of different vintages.
Oh and one more thing, the HDD is a 200GB 7200rpm Western Digital "Caviar" ( I think) purchased last spring.

[Waragainstsleep]

Testing the drive on the internal bus will tell you whether its the drive or the sonnet card which is at fault. Seems like the best place to start. If the drive doesn't show on the desktop, use Disk Utility/Diskwarrior/Techtool to see if they can spot it.

If not, talk to WD about a replacement drive. If it shows up, it must be the card, so talk to Sonnet. If the card used to work under OS 9, then I can't see that upgrading your X install to 10.3.8 should have any effect on its functionaliy under 9. If they don't tell you otherwise, ask for a new card.

[Ellis Vener]

Thanks! After more troubleshooting this morning it becaame apparent that the problem was a dead HDD it was just a coincidence that it died right after I did the update. it was three months out of warranty.

This afternoon it was replaced with a Hitachi 250Gb Deskstar HDD.

[Dex13]

You mean Deathstar????

....

[omar96]

Hitachi has really worked hard to shake the "Deathstar" image...obviously hasn't happened yet and it'll take longer, but things at least supposedly have improved