Cannot mount firewire HD

[evolu]

I have a 120 Gig with a ton of music and some video that all of a sudden won't mount! The dialogue box says it contains no volumes that OS X can read...

(I'm running X.2.6 on a dual 1.4 MDD)

Then both my iPod and any CDs wouldn't show up on the desktop or iTunes. Disk images couldn't mount because they contained no readable information. All of a sudden these problems vanished but my 120 still won't show up.

I have to finish editing a project with that drive - any suggestions?

Thanks!

[billyboy]

Have you done the bog standard stuff like restarting, Repair Permissions, MacJanitor, Jaguar Cache Cleaner? I occasionally cant get a CD to show in iTunes like you mentioned, but in my case its been a temporary blip that some quick maintenance rejig sorts out.

[mac3dX]

You're Firewire ports may have died. It happened to me and many others. Apple has admitted this is a problem. Try searching their support forums and you should find some answers. Worst case, if all else fails, you might want to take the drive out of the case and install it internally. This is what I had to do. All the data is there, but the firewire ports no longer work.

[zim]

I have a maxtor drive that disappears sometimes. The best thing to do is to, and this is directly form maxtor, shut down the drive, unplugging it from the power source and firewire cables. Wait 10sec, I have giving it up to 5mins to rest, then power it up, wait another 10sec or so then connect it to the firewire.. they called it power-cycling or something like that, I have had to do the same with my cable modem before as well, not sire if the two issues are related or not.

That should work, once you are back up, I would check the drive with disk warrior, just to be safe. good luck! The best thing to do, and I have learned, is to just take a breath, unplug and walk away for a little bit.

[Mlobo01]

This has happen to me while attempting to daisy chain a Firewire drive, or connect an extra drive to the initial Firewire drive via its secondary port, it sets it off, just run Norton's utilities if it doesn't discover
it while in Native mode you might have to
re-boot into the Nortons Utilities disc, that has always solved my issue, use disk doctor, defragment then see if it goes back to normal.

[evolu]

Thanks friends!

I'll try that tonight and get back to you...

[evolu]

My volume structure is corrupted.

Apparently all the info on the drive is not retrievable unless I wanted to pay $1K to a data recovery house. F-that.

The guy from phantom recommended I run drive 10 every other month or so to catch any problems early. He also said that volume structures are most corrupted by 1. video 2. audio and lastly regular documents.

Also - I'm through mourning and I'll be starting over with the drive this weekend - any last minute suggestions for recovery?

Thanks.

[zim]

Originally posted by evolu
The guy from phantom recommended I run drive 10 every other month or so to catch any problems early. He also said that volume structures are most corrupted by 1. video 2. audio and lastly regular documents.

Wow, he is smart, did he advise you of that on his own? Sorry for the sarcasm.

Apparently all the info on the drive is not retrievable unless I wanted to pay $1K to a data recovery house. F-that.

Highly recommend trying out DiskWarrior before you give up. DiskWarrior has done wonders for me, my maxtor had serious issues, would not even show up on the desktop, Disk Warrior fixed it =)

[evolu]

Disk Warrior was a great application - but no help...

I've tried them all by now, and it seems like Drive 10 and Disk Warrior were the strongest apps.

Looks like I'm starting over Saturday morning... Thanks All!

[crazytom]

I'm noticing more and more corruption of FW drives now more than ever (from iSight/iPod users). I have 2 FW drives (connected through a Belkin hub). Every once and a while, I'll find the magic dance that makes everything work...the only thing is: I don't remember what I did last. The one drastic action I take is: unplug everything, reset my PMU, power everything up, then plug the FW cable in....though, I shouldn't have to do this every time I want to use a FW device.

I haven't lost any data, yet, but I did have an empty drive go funky and need reformatting. It seems that there's something major amiss with Apple's implementation of FW (or ~something~). I'm hoping that 10.2.7/8 will address these issues.

[Mattnh]

Since the update of the 'new' 10.2.8 i have serieus firewire issues. To check if it was the external HDs or the G4 I hooked it up to an different G4 and it works fine there. Never had problems with the Firewire HDs before.
It just doesn't mount. And when it does it falls of the desktop after a few minutes with a warning to follow. Help? mattnh@zonnet.nl

[Mattnh]

Since the update of the 'new' 10.2.8 i have serieus firewire issues. To check if it was the external HDs or the G4 I hooked it up to an different G4 and it works fine there. Never had problems with the Firewire HDs before.
It just doesn't mount. And when it does it falls of the desktop after a few minutes with a warning to follow. Help? mattnh@zonnet.nl

[Mattnh]

Sorry for the doubles...

[ARKHAM]

I have been having problems with a firewire drive. The drive in question is a 120 GB drive that I use to store all my MP3's (80 GB's worth).

In the middle of playing a song, iTunes will completely stop and the only way for me to get iTunes out of its infinite loop is to power off the firewire drive and force iTunes to quit.

I then power the firewire drive back on and launch iTunes again.

Then iTunes and the drive work again until the same problem repeats itself.

I got this problem first when I upgraded to 10.2.8.

I started fresh with a copy of Panther and the same problem occurs.

I have tried switching the firewire enclosure, cable and port it is plugged into. Nothing.

Morever, I have checked the drive and there are no problems found, so there must be a communication error between iTunes and the firewire drive?

Thoughts?

pwc

[Mattnh]

Hmmm, still thinking here.
My new DPG4 is still kicking the FWHDs from the desktop, followed by a warning.
So I put a FW-PCI-card in the machine and now it kinda works.
Still a lot copy errors and a crashing finder (OK, not crashing but stalling/freeshing). Missing FW-disks at start-up that will not mount.
I am more convinced that my G4 is corrupt on the hardware-side.
So I need to clear the disks and I'm gonna send it back.
My 'old' QSG4 733 had the same OS, PCI and FW config like this one now has and had no problems at all. I start to miss old machine.

[Squirrelissimo]

Maxtor 120 GB HD in a CompUSA-branded external firewire case attached to a 800 Mhz iMac. Out of warranty.

Worked fine for months but then started to simply not appear/mount when I booted the iMac.

Reseting PRAM, PMU, hot plugging, etc. have no effect.

Am considering re-installing included OS X 10.1 to see if I can get firewire back.

a) anyone else try this with success ?

b) anyone know where to get older OS 10.1 and 10.2 patches ?

[Mattnh]

One of the weaknesses of Macintoshes seem to be the dying FW-ports.
Maybe check in the Terminal/Console what the FW-port is doing.
The log can tell you info about the FW/mount-activities.
Checking with a DV-cam for drop-outs also gives a clear indication.
Good luck! :)

I'm still trying to get my FW to work...

[Squirrelissimo]

Originally posted by Mattnh
One of the weaknesses of Macintoshes seem to be the dying FW-ports.
Maybe check in the Terminal/Console what the FW-port is doing.

I'm not a hardcore Mac person - just a dabbler.

How does one check FW port activity in Terminal ?

[Mattnh]

It's propably more easy to check the console.
Open this one before you start-up your FWHD.
A lot of activities are being registered by the console.
You can find the App in the Utilities-folder of your App-folder.
If a port is defect or a App is funky it (console) will tell you a lot of code but also if a port/app is starting to be a pain.
You don't need to understand all of the code but if a port or HD is going down than you'll see a lot of repetitions of 'trying to mount'.
A lot of repetitions of not-clean-mounting or error-codes (trust me, you'll recognize them) tells you wat happens.
Also a good clean mount is easy to recognize.
Google the warnings (if available) and that will bring enlightment (hopefully) ;)
Did you try to hook it (FWHD) up to an other Macintosh?
My FWHD was working great with other G4s and that's when I started to suspect the FW-ports.

By the way, there's a log-folder on your HD as well.
It has a lot of error-logs from the terminal/console in it. Just for you.
Logging is a wonderfull thing. Explains a lot.