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MaxMac · Aug 7, 2001, 03:19 PM

I am about to buy a firewire hdd for my iBook2. Has anyone heard of these guys? http://www.basoncomputer.com/productlist.asp?004117615 I am willing to take a shot since the price is so good, but I would like to know more about them. Anyone?

graphics84 · Aug 7, 2001, 03:38 PM

never delt with them before but that's a great price!!!!

MaxMac · Aug 7, 2001, 04:27 PM

I bought the 15gb http://www.basoncomputer.com/specifi...HD15GBFW24.htm
for $139 + $10 Fedex. I will let you know how it goes...

ATC Ken · Aug 8, 2001, 03:48 AM

Max,

Is that a bus powered drive? Looking for portability.

Ken

MaxMac · Aug 8, 2001, 07:02 AM

Yes, the 2.5" drives are bus powered. I should receive mine today, I will try to post pics, but the pics on their web site are hard to beat. Maybe some of the back, or bottom. I will also let you know how the setup goes.

ATC Ken · Aug 8, 2001, 10:02 PM

Great Max...will look for the pics. Need to get an external but portable firewire drive soon.

Ken

MaxMac · Aug 9, 2001, 10:17 AM

There was a little shipping delay and I should have it today... I hope! I have the FedEx tracking number so I know it is travelling.

Psihawk · Aug 10, 2001, 01:01 PM

Originally posted by MaxMac:
There was a little shipping delay and I should have it today... I hope! I have the FedEx tracking number so I know it is travelling.

I received my Hard Drive case (I had an old 12gig HD from my Wallstreet) yesterday and put it together in about 10min... plugged it in and BAM! it appeared right on the desktop (in both OSX and OS9). This company was terrific, got it the NEXT DAY as opposed to the 2nd day air I paid for. The only down side? The cable is SIX FEET long.

I really don't need that much cable for a HD that will sit next to my iBook.

Oh, and yes it's bus powered... it better be it didn't include an adapter.

MaxMac · Aug 10, 2001, 06:05 PM

I recieved mine today, and it is great! 15gb, bus-powered, LONG cable! Very fast, but I haven't really tested it. Only had it hooked up 5 min!

FormerLurker · Aug 11, 2001, 12:31 AM

Originally posted by Psihawk:

I received my Hard Drive case (I had an old 12gig HD from my Wallstreet) yesterday and put it together in about 10min... plugged it in and BAM! it appeared right on the desktop (in both OSX and OS9).

The reason it works so well is that it used to be in your PowerBook and therefore was formatted by Apple's Drive Setup.

My favorite tip for FireWire drives.. find a friend with a Pismo/Lombard/Wallstreet and "borrow" their PowerBook long enough to hook up the new drive.

Why?

Because you can then boot from an OS 9 CD and use Drive Setup to format the drive.

Because then you can forget about those damn 3rd party extensions & drivers & formatters (after 10 years in Mac tech support, I HATE them!!

)

Because when it is formatted by Apple's Drive Setup, the drive runs (and is bootable) with FireWire Support & FireWire Enabler extensions 2.7 and above (part of OS 9.1).

It's a fair amount of extra work for a 2.5" drive, but if you have a 3.5" drive and access to a Power Mac G3 or G4, it's much easier.

This is another good reason to buy drive kits and raw drives seperately (although you could just take apart a complete drive + case I suppose).

Sorry for the cross-post

Psihawk · Aug 11, 2001, 03:48 PM

Originally posted by FormerLurker:

My favorite tip for FireWire drives.. find a friend with a Pismo/Lombard/Wallstreet and "borrow" their PowerBook long enough to hook up the new drive.

Why?

Because you can then boot from an OS 9 CD and use Drive Setup to format the drive.

Because when it is formatted by Apple's Drive Setup, the drive runs (and is bootable) with FireWire Support & FireWire Enabler extensions 2.7 and above (part of OS 9.1).

Well, I reformatted the Hard Drive in OSX and made it one Partition (it's mainly going to be used to hold my files to be archived and my MP3s) and it's working great.

I was wondering if anyone knows if you should unmount a firewire HD before putting the computer to sleep. When I woke up the machine I got an error message stating that I didn't put the drive away properly.

KidRed · Aug 11, 2001, 07:31 PM

My favorite tip for FireWire drives.. find a friend with a Pismo/Lombard/Wallstreet and "borrow" their PowerBook long enough to hook up the new drive.

Why can't I use my G4 to format the new drive?

MaxMac- How is it? Is it fast when reading and writing 500 megs+ ? Good price and I might get it but I want the fastest smallest drive I can find for good price.

c0rvette · Aug 11, 2001, 10:05 PM

why use an external 4200 drive when you can get faster?

MaxMac · Aug 12, 2001, 08:26 AM

Originally posted by c0rvette:
why use an external 4200 drive when you can get faster?

Because you can get a small, light, high capacity (10-30) drive, bus-powered, drive. Yeah you can get a 7200rpm, 80gb, drive, but... it will be large, and require a power adapter plugged into the wall to function.

FormerLurker · Aug 13, 2001, 12:03 AM

Originally posted by Psihawk:


Well, I reformatted the Hard Drive in OSX and made it one Partition (it's mainly going to be used to hold my files to be archived and my MP3s) and it's working great.

I was wondering if anyone knows if you should unmount a firewire HD before putting the computer to sleep. When I woke up the machine I got an error message stating that I didn't put the drive away properly.

Yes, you need to dismount FireWire HDs before sleep.

Sounds like it might be possible to reformat in X and avoid the format-as-internal-drive process while receiving the same compatibility benefits... I may have to try this sometime.

Does the drive mount when hot-pluggted in OS 9 without any third party extensions in your system folder?

Psihawk · Aug 13, 2001, 12:19 AM

Originally posted by FormerLurker:


Yes, you need to dismount FireWire HDs before sleep.

Sounds like it might be possible to reformat in X and avoid the format-as-internal-drive process while receiving the same compatibility benefits... I may have to try this sometime.

Does the drive mount when hot-pluggted in OS 9 without any third party extensions in your system folder?

I did reformat my drive in OS X, and yes the drive mounts when hot plugged into my fresh OS 9.1 folder... BTW -- it also remounts when awakening fromn sleep.

MaxMac · Aug 13, 2001, 06:11 AM

Kid, it seems fast but I don't really have any benching software to measure it. Does anyone know of any?