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bbales · Feb 29, 2008, 11:42 AM

This may have been covered -- I did post in "loepard bugs" yesterday, but that thread seems kind of slow...

When upgrading, I disconnected my firewire hub, to which are connected two exernal drives. I upgraded a week ago. Well, yesterday I decided I needed to do an overdue backup. Plugged in the hub and ... no external drives appeared. None, none, none. System profiler said something along the lines of "problems with firewire." (I can't remember the exact phrasing. Tried to restart. Machine froze. Unplugged the hub. Restarted. Machine fine. (But still no way to do a backup. Plus, let's face it, I want my drives back.)

Tried plugging my ipod in this morning directly to my iMac (mid 2007). Yay! It mounts. But nothing else works. Well, I take that back. Any programs already opened continued to work. NO NEW programs would start (including itunes, which tried to start as soon as the ipod was plugged in. System profiler wouldn't work. Printer wouldn't work. Nothing. Tried to relaunch the finder. Machine hangs. Could not dismount ipod either. Finally just unplugged the firewire. Restarted. All is fine, again, as long as nothing is in the firewire port.

Any ideas? I'm running basic Leopard (10.5). And I'm a little reluctant to do any upgrading until I can back up the drive somehow.

analogika · Feb 29, 2008, 11:59 AM

Did you update all installed third-party drivers - printer drivers, audio interface drivers, etc. - to EXPLICITLY Leopard-compatible versions?

What happens if you hook up just a single hard drive - not an iPod, not a hub - to the machine?

Is one of the drives also connectable via USB - to allow at least a back-up for now?

turtle777 · Feb 29, 2008, 01:09 PM

I have two FW drives, but connected to Leopard. Had no issues with it.
No special drivers needed either.

My hunch is that your Leopard install is borked.

Did you try the Voodoo-Repair-Permissions routine ?

-t

bbales · Feb 29, 2008, 01:41 PM

Define "borked!" And Leopard was working so well, too ... I had had seemingly, no issues! I did repair permissions yesterday, by the way. (I don't know why I forgot after the immediate installation, but I did.)
I followed a rec from an Apple discussion site to sign in and out and in and out of .mac -- I'm not at ALL sure what that has to do with the price of beans.

I did not try the hub after the .mac thing (but I did after the repair permissions). I just trying moving my main backup drive (500 GB Seagate) from the hub to a direct connection and voila! It mounts.

I also e-mailed Belkin to ask if they have any Leopard issues, and if there's a firmware update for the hub. I kind of count on that hub to connect multiples of devices. At the moment, though, I can live with just having my main drive back.

And it occurs to me that maybe this drive is also Firewire 800. I bought it before I had a machine with both 400 and 800. I'll have to check.

bbales · Feb 29, 2008, 01:41 PM

And by the way, if the install IS borked -- do I re-do it with the same disk, or would you recommend I now do the upgrade?

turtle777 · Feb 29, 2008, 01:53 PM

Ok, I missed the piece of information that the FW drive mounts when connected directly.

Do BOTH FW drives mount, or only one of them ?

If both, then the hub is your problem. Clearly.
A firmware update for the hub could fix it.

Can't you daisy-chain the two drives ?

-t

Eug · Feb 29, 2008, 01:55 PM

Well, for what it's worth, shortly after I upgraded to 10.4.10, my iMac's Firewire died. Completely. Turns out it was indeed a hardware failure.

The hard part is you can't test a clean install first yourself (to see if it's not a borked OS install issue)... cuz your Firewire drives don't work.

However, in your case, I'd just try a new hub, because it seems your Firewire is not (completely) borked.

JKT · Feb 29, 2008, 01:58 PM

Given that the issue is being caused by a IO port/hardware issue, you should reset your power management for that type of Mac (if it is anything like the latter day iMacs, that means unplugging the power cord for 5+ mins then putting it back in, though I would check the manual/Apple Support first to make sure).

bbales · Feb 29, 2008, 02:02 PM

Originally Posted by JKT

Given that the issue is being caused by a IO port/hardware issue, you should reset your power management for that type of Mac (if it is anything like the latter day iMacs, that means unplugging the power cord for 5+ mins then putting it back in, though I would check the manual/Apple Support first to make sure).

JKT -- I have almost your exact iMac -- mine is 2.4 Gz, not 2.8.

bbales · Feb 29, 2008, 02:04 PM

Originally Posted by turtle777

Ok, I missed the piece of information that the FW drive mounts when connected directly.

Do BOTH FW drives mount, or only one of them ?

If both, then the hub is your problem. Clearly.
A firmware update for the hub could fix it.

Can't you daisy-chain the two drives ?

-t

Turtle -- that's because in my original note I hadn't tried the direct connection yet. I've never daisy-chained, to be honest with you. But I guess I should try that.

This would all be easier if I had easier access to the drives. My husband put up shelves for me, and in an effort to tidy everything up, he ran this stuff to cage all the wires. Used nice ties and everything. The problem is, I can't get to things easily! But will try the other drive in a bit and see if it works, too. I suspect it will.

If it IS hardware, well, this iMac is only 7 months old.

JKT · Feb 29, 2008, 02:09 PM

Originally Posted by bbales

JKT -- I have almost your exact iMac -- mine is 2.4 Gz, not 2.8.

My bad, I forget that I waited until Leopard was shipping before purchasing... so I keep thinking mine is a (non-existent in the Apple line-up) late 2007 model! Doh.

ibook_steve · Feb 29, 2008, 02:57 PM

If the FW drives each work fine when connected directly to the machine, this is clearly a FW hub problem, and I've never heard of a hub that could take a firmware update. Just get a new FW hub. As for the other problems, you should follow the other advice given here as well as boot with the OS install disk and run Disk Utility repair to make sure everything is OK.

Steve

bbales · Feb 29, 2008, 03:08 PM

I just daisy chained one Seagate to another, and again, voila! both drives are now on my desktop.

I've had this hub a while -- guess it's time to invest in another. For now, though, daisy chaining is working. And I can do my backup. I get twitchy if I can't depend on having everything backed up.

Thanks for all the help.

turtle777 · Feb 29, 2008, 04:20 PM

You're welcome

-t

bbales · Feb 29, 2008, 04:29 PM

Just thought of something, though. Why didn't my ipod work? Now, I don't usually use my ipod with this computer -- I use my laptop. But it still bugs me it didn't work... (Though maybe it would now, now that I logged in and out of .mac. I'll ahve to try that.)

turtle777 · Feb 29, 2008, 04:31 PM

It should work. It might have been a fluke.
You should be able to daisy-chain the iPod as well. It has to be the last in line because it doesn't have a second FW port.

-t

bbales · Mar 1, 2008, 08:49 AM

Originally Posted by turtle777

It should work. It might have been a fluke.
You should be able to daisy-chain the iPod as well. It has to be the last in line because it doesn't have a second FW port.

-t

I tried that -- it worked. itunes started, everything seems fine. So -- I'm going to have to go with the theory that the hub is the source of the problems. I have already ordered a new one. In the meantime, I've just daisy-chained. Makes for kind of a mess, but it works, and that's what counts. Thanks for all the help.

docjohn1958 · Mar 30, 2008, 11:42 AM

I am a musician and I have just upgraded to Leo 10.5.2. As you can see in this thread:
mlan v112 driver & firewire bus damage on Leopard? - MotiForum. Discuss Motif issues with people all over the world. - Forums powered by UBB.threads�
and in this:
problem with new driver Leopard Logic studio 8 - MotiForum. Discuss Motif issues with people all over the world. - Forums powered by UBB.threads�
I have tried to install a third part firewire device driver (it's mlan v112 for digital mixer 01X Yamaha, declared fully compatible with Leo). From that moment on, no firewire device was detected anymore, neither a simple ISight, on both a G5 (upgraded to Leopard) and my brand new MacBookPro (on which I installed the same mlan driver). System profiler says no firewire device detected, red fonts, if I click on last line (in Italian is : reesoconti, something like: reports): deep gray courtain and ask to reboot via phisical switch (major crash). Moreover MacBookPro is extremely slow in boot, it takes almost 1 minute from gray/apple screen to bue screen and almost three-four minutes to prompt the Universe login screen. I brought G5 to Apple assistence on last Friday: they said maybe a logical board crash, and I fear that MacBookPro will follow his bigger brother. Any suggestions? Thanks
Giovanni

ibook_steve · Mar 30, 2008, 09:50 PM

Well, obviously the first thing you should try is uninstalling this "fully compatible" driver and see if it solves the crashing and other problems.

Steve

docjohn1958 · Mar 31, 2008, 03:53 AM

Hi Steve, this is exactely the first thing I did, but no way...
At Apple they say there is a physical damage on both computers at fw bus level; bad driver or the only other explanation is a physical false contact in firewire cable between mixer and computers or in Yamaha mixer 01X fw door. But they also said that maybe release 10.5.2 changed a little the power (tension, voltage, I am not a technician, don't know the specific word) of firewire bus.
Giovanni

ajwitherby · Jul 22, 2008, 02:10 PM

Have you tried re-setting the SMU? Close down computer, remove power cable for 5 minutes then restart the computer by holding down the power key on the back for at least 10 seconds or until you hear a very long start-up bong and the light on the front of the iMac flashes. This will reset the SMU and has (almost) always resolved any Firewire problems I have had with my iMac (such as external iSight not working and Firewire disks not mounting).