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Q27 · Sep 16, 2005, 11:05 AM

Yesterday I woke my computer from sleep mode and the graphics were weird on the screen so I turned off the monitor and turned it back on. This seemed to help a little bit, but I decided to reboot my computer. When the reboot was finished I got an error about my external FireWire hard drive saying it couldn't mount. Asking me if I wanted to Initialize, Eject, or Ignore. Well I fired up Disk Utility to see what was wrong. I could see the disk but couldn't do anything. So I decided to try some other utilities on it. Tech Tool Pro and Disk Warrior. TTP checked the disk and physically it looks fine but there is like no partitions or anything on it. DiskWarrior said it couldn't repair directory structure because the disk format is unsupported. I would rather not format since I do have some files on there I don't want to lose, but I am not about to go out and spend big bucks on a data recovery service. Is there anything else that I can do to try and rescue my disk?

Randman · Sep 16, 2005, 11:34 AM

Did you use it straight out of the box or did you format it when you got it with Disk Utility?

Q27 · Sep 16, 2005, 11:40 AM

Well I had been using it with my PC so it was in NTFS, so I formatted the whole thing using Disk Utility (HFS+) and it has been running fine ever since ... well up until yesterday.

ogun · Sep 16, 2005, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by Q27

Yesterday I woke my computer from sleep mode and the graphics were weird on the screen so I turned off the monitor and turned it back on. This seemed to help a little bit, but I decided to reboot my computer. When the reboot was finished I got an error about my external FireWire hard drive saying it couldn't mount. Asking me if I wanted to Initialize, Eject, or Ignore. Well I fired up Disk Utility to see what was wrong. I could see the disk but couldn't do anything. So I decided to try some other utilities on it. Tech Tool Pro and Disk Warrior. TTP checked the disk and physically it looks fine but there is like no partitions or anything on it. DiskWarrior said it couldn't repair directory structure because the disk format is unsupported. I would rather not format since I do have some files on there I don't want to lose, but I am not about to go out and spend big bucks on a data recovery service. Is there anything else that I can do to try and rescue my disk?

What size disk was this? The 500 GB and larger drives die easy. The smaller ones seem more robust.

analogika · Sep 16, 2005, 09:04 PM

Was it a Porsche design LaCie disk?

Just disconnect it and reconnect it a few times until it's recognized.

then back it up and throw it away.

analogika · Sep 16, 2005, 09:06 PM

Oh, and the 500 GB disks are just two 250s in one box.

ogun · Sep 16, 2005, 09:29 PM

Originally Posted by analogika

Oh, and the 500 GB disks are just two 250s in one box.

Apparently they're two 250s in one box... with insufficient cooling, which makes the hardware unstable, and with RAID 0 software oriented just a tad too far over towards speed and not nearly far enough towards reliability. Individual 250s seem to work fine (mine do, anyway); dual 250s die like flies.

mikulla · 10:26 PM

I am having a similar problem.

My external Lacie 160 d2 won't mount. I can hear it spin and shut down.

I can only think of a few things that I did:

1. Disk utility - repaired permissions on my laptop hd, then verified my Lacie external. This was in preparation to installing Lacie's silver keeper back up software.

2. Ran Onyx maintainence on my laptop hard drive.

3. Installed silver keeper. Opened it. Selected the source as my laptop. Then the beachball spun for too long IMO, so I forced quit.

It showed up in disk utility, so I tried to verify it. It told me "Catalog file entry not found for extent. The volume needs repaired".

When I tried to repair it I received the error "Catalog file not found for extent. Volume check failed."

So I tried to use diskwarrior to rebuild and received the error ""LaCie d2 156 GB" cannot be rebuilt. The original directory is too severely damaged. The disk was not modified (2155, 2179)".

I did download the firmware updater and it said I was ok. I also read somewhere about the power cords causing problems with some of their externals.

Any help appreciated.

Q27 · Sep 16, 2005, 10:10 PM

250GB Porsche Design. Tried disconnecting it and reconnecting it a couple of times to no avail.

Is there any known problems with these drives?

analogika · Sep 17, 2005, 04:18 AM

(yes.)

ogun · Sep 17, 2005, 08:55 AM

Originally Posted by mikulla

I did download the firmware updater and it said I was ok. I also read somewhere about the power cords causing problems with some of their externals.

Any help appreciated.

There have been several problems with power and La Cies. They are in two main groups:

1 the power supply itself dies.

2 the power cable in the back of the drive is loose.

Some machines have both.

Drives affected seem to be 160, 200, and 250 GB D2s. It seems that a specific group of drives have the problem. It also seems that LaCie knows which units have the problem. I've had several power supplies, complete with cable, replaced without any hassle. By shere luck I've not had any data loss due to the problem. Drives not in that specific group, and the replacement power supplies, do _not_ have the problem. Indeed, the replacement power supplies have power cables which seem to be a tad oversize, so that they're hard to insert in the drive... which, of course, means that they're very hard to remove. This is annoying if you have to unplug stuff so as to move the drive to a different Mac, but is still a Good Thing(tm) IMHO. I'd much rather have to put some effort into plugging and unplugging the power than to have the power cable come loose by itself.

Symptoms of the power supply problem is that the power brick gets hot and the little light on it blinks rapidly. (Not all of the power bricks have the little LED.) Symptoms of the loose cable is that the cable is, well, loose and comes out easily. If you see either, and have an early modle d2, get a new power supply.

ogun · Sep 17, 2005, 08:55 AM

Originally Posted by Q27

250GB Porsche Design. Tried disconnecting it and reconnecting it a couple of times to no avail.

Is there any known problems with these drives?

The d2s are far more reliable.

mikulla · Sep 17, 2005, 02:03 PM

I should note that the led is a constant green on my power supply.

Could the issue still be the power supply even with the error messages (above) that I received from disk utility and diskwarrior?

mikulla · Sep 17, 2005, 03:10 PM

Well. I took the drive to the apple store to use a good power supply and it didn't solve the problem.

Should I try to put the drive in an empty bay of a tower?

iomatic · Sep 17, 2005, 03:12 PM

So I take it this a non-recommendation of the current LaCie drives?

analogika · Sep 17, 2005, 07:09 PM

Originally Posted by iomatic

So I take it this a non-recommendation of the current LaCie drives?

of the PORSCHE DESIGN LaCie drives.

The d2 models (which included the Triple Extreme type) are fine, IME.

ogun · Sep 17, 2005, 08:19 PM

Originally Posted by mikulla

I should note that the led is a constant green on my power supply.

Could the issue still be the power supply even with the error messages (above) that I received from disk utility and diskwarrior?

You may have a different problem.

all2ofme · Sep 19, 2005, 09:20 AM

My 250GB Porsche drive wasn't recognised for a while (plugged and unplugged it a few times to get it back working) but it's been fine since.

Nice drive. Hope it doesn't die. I'd like another one to stack on top of it, even

vinster · Sep 19, 2005, 09:30 AM

Try resetting the firewire bus by shutting down and unplugging all peripherals, wait 30 seconds and reconnect everything.

kcourt · Sep 21, 2005, 11:42 AM

I have the LaCie D2 extreme 160 external Hard Disk and it has caused me no problem at all. I do shut down my comouter at night - this might cool off the power supply a bit.

I am very happy with it - it is fast (firewire).

Kathy

mikulla · Sep 21, 2005, 05:38 PM

I've almost given up. I'm going to have it pulled from the original case and put into a new case or tower. Hopefully that will work and the very important data can be recovered.

analogika · Sep 21, 2005, 11:24 PM

FWIW, I tell all my customers that if you don't it have AT LEAST twice on separate disks, you can afford to lose it.

I do not trust hard drives much further than I can throw them.

nJm · Oct 29, 2005, 05:52 AM

I'm glad I found this thread, I was about to buy a Lacie Porsche P3 160gb drive. So they are unreliable? It is going to be my boot drive so must work...

Scrat · Oct 31, 2005, 05:49 PM

Hello, I just bought the 250GB Lacie d2 hard drive extreme and i want to format it so it can be used in both windows and mac. I've got the PowerBook G4 15" 1.67 GHz
and the windows one is running windows xp. I'm confused on how to format though in the user's manual it seems so easy..
Does anyone know?????? please if so, reply to me with details as i'm a begginer in these things.
Thanks a lot

ogun · Oct 31, 2005, 06:05 PM

Originally Posted by Scrat

Hello, I just bought the 250GB Lacie d2 hard drive extreme and i want to format it so it can be used in both windows and mac. I've got the PowerBook G4 15" 1.67 GHz
and the windows one is running windows xp. I'm confused on how to format though in the user's manual it seems so easy..
Does anyone know?????? please if so, reply to me with details as i'm a begginer in these things.
Thanks a lot

1 launch Disk Utility

2 select the 'Erase' pane

3 select the actual drive, such as 239 GB La Cie, NOT the volume

4 go to the pull-down menu and select MS-DOS File System.

5 format that drive.

You will get a drive formatted in FAT32. That drive will not be able to boot the Mac. As it is an external drive, it will not be able to boot the Windows box. As FAT32 is not particularly effecient at large sizes, you will be wasting a lot of disk space.

You might want to partition that drive and only use a part as a FAT32 partition. You might also think seriously about just getting a small jump drive instead.

ironknee · Oct 31, 2005, 08:03 PM

maybe it's just me

but i just updated to OSX 10.4.3 and both my firewire drives are not mounting. one is a lacie 200m

i've turned them off, unplugged/replugged...rebooted serveral times (residue thinking from OS9)

still nothing...help?

ogun · Oct 31, 2005, 08:35 PM

Originally Posted by ironknee

maybe it's just me

but i just updated to OSX 10.4.3 and both my firewire drives are not mounting. one is a lacie 200m

i've turned them off, unplugged/replugged...rebooted serveral times (residue thinking from OS9)

still nothing...help?

Donno, man. My drives are all working here. Two LaCies, a Seagate, and a Maxtor in a generic enclosure.

ogun · Oct 31, 2005, 08:36 PM

Originally Posted by ironknee

maybe it's just me

but i just updated to OSX 10.4.3 and both my firewire drives are not mounting. one is a lacie 200m

i've turned them off, unplugged/replugged...rebooted serveral times (residue thinking from OS9)

still nothing...help?

Donno, man. My drives are all working here. Two LaCies, a Seagate, and a Maxtor in a generic enclosure.

Scrat · Nov 1, 2005, 02:01 PM

Originally Posted by ogun

1 launch Disk Utility

2 select the 'Erase' pane

3 select the actual drive, such as 239 GB La Cie, NOT the volume

4 go to the pull-down menu and select MS-DOS File System.

5 format that drive.

You will get a drive formatted in FAT32. That drive will not be able to boot the Mac. As it is an external drive, it will not be able to boot the Windows box. As FAT32 is not particularly effecient at large sizes, you will be wasting a lot of disk space.

You might want to partition that drive and only use a part as a FAT32 partition. You might also think seriously about just getting a small jump drive instead.

I did everything till No.4 but then I don't know how to Format it. It doesn't say anywhere Format and I'm confused!!

ogun · Nov 1, 2005, 02:14 PM

Originally Posted by Scrat

I did everything till No.4 but then I don't know how to Format it. It doesn't say anywhere Format and I'm confused!!

hit the button marked 'erase'.

llirik · Nov 14, 2005, 02:37 AM

I have a similar problem.

Except that one partition shows up (a 50gb hfs one) but the other (a 180gb fat32) does not.

well, the partition shows...but it's empty. no data. i've reading around and it seems that the catalog information is corrupt or something.

this would be easily fixable with diskwarrior if the partition was hfs. but diskwarrior does not recognize fat32.

i work on a powerbook g4, 1.5ghz.

does anyone know of a program like diskwarrior that can help me repair the catalog information? 180gb of information is quite alot.

i also have a pc to work with, so a program for either would be appreciated.

thanks