Apple Addresses Panther Firewire Issues [Archive]

MacRumors

Oct 30, 2003, 08:22 PM

Apple posted (http://www.apple.com/macosx/firewire800specialmessage.html) a response to concerns about file corruption on External Firewire Drives.

Apple has identified an issue with external FireWire hard drives using the Oxford 922 bridge chip-set with firmware version 1.02 that can result in the loss of data stored on the disk drive. Apple is working with Oxford Semiconductor and affected drive manufacturers to resolve this issue which resides in the Oxford 922 chip-set.

In the interim, Apple recommends that you do not use these drives. To stop using the drive, you should unmount or eject the disk drive before doing anything else. Please check this web page for further updates.

Both Firewire 800 and 400 drives are reported to have been affected by user reports.

Makosuke

Oct 30, 2003, 08:33 PM

Hmm... good to see Apple finally taking action on this, but I wonder if it's as simple as just Oxford 922 controllers--there've been a lot of reports from people using FW400, and unless someone is confused or some vendors are putting Oxford 922 controllers in FW400 drives, it looks an awful lot like there's more to the problem.

Or, maybe, it's more than one problem, but each has the same symptom--munged FW drive after restart.

ITR 81

Oct 30, 2003, 08:38 PM

So I wonder if it's just a driver that needs to be re-coded or what? Because I hate to have bought fw800 ex-drive and not being able to use it.

Stella

Oct 30, 2003, 08:44 PM

Good to hear that Apple have recongised the problems.

HOWEVER, looking through the Apple discussion boards, ppl have also had FW400 drives trashed.

Hope Apple soon releases a statement about those.

Genie

Oct 30, 2003, 08:58 PM

Wow- glad I read that
Thanks MR!

I was just about to buy 4 FW800 enclosures.

Anybody know ehre to get some good SATA stuff? (raid card, drives, enclosures, cables)

greenstork

Oct 30, 2003, 09:11 PM

Wow, this by far the harshest Panther story to date. Trashing data is no small issue.

sebimeyer

Oct 30, 2003, 09:11 PM

Well this is ****** super.

So does this mean they will do something about my 200 GB of data that I lost? Any recomendations of how I can get my data back?

Stella

Oct 30, 2003, 09:14 PM

Try mounting your FW drive on another version of MAC OS - 8,9,10 etc.

There have been some reports that other versions can read the disk, but Panther cannot.

Drive X is also popular for recovering trashed FW disks.

If you can't retrieve your data, then your stuffed. You could try phoning Apple for support to see what else they suggest.

SiliconAddict

Oct 30, 2003, 09:14 PM

Why are there 6 positive votes? This is a major issue that could, and most likely has, cause data loss.

sebimeyer

Oct 30, 2003, 09:19 PM

Originally posted by Stella
Try mounting your FW drive on another version of MAC OS - 8,9,10 etc.

There have been some reports that other versions can read the disk, but Panther cannot.

Drive X is also popular for recovering trashed FW disks.

If you can't retrieve your data, then your stuffed. You could try phoning Apple for support to see what else they suggest.

I've tried all of those things.

I will make a trip to the Apple Store in Tampa this weekend. Hopefully they will help me.

And yeah, what on earth is positive about this?

usingmac

Oct 30, 2003, 09:21 PM

Lacie has a fix, but you need to boot up in 9. which sounds smart anyway.

sebimeyer

Oct 30, 2003, 09:28 PM

I am not quite clear on how the Lacie fix works. Will it just give me a working drive again? Or will it actually recover the data?

Trekkie

Oct 30, 2003, 09:30 PM

Originally posted by usingmac
Lacie has a fix, but you need to boot up in 9. which sounds smart anyway.

HOw do you boot up nine on a newer Mac that doesn't support nine booting?

joeyjojoe

Oct 30, 2003, 09:38 PM

so does this only happen if you updates the firmware? i've been using my 200gb fw800 drive with panther since i installed and have had no problems. does the data corruption happen consistently?

h'biki

Oct 30, 2003, 09:52 PM

I knew there was a reason my copy of Panther is sitting on my shelf waiting to be installed.

And from my digging, it seems as if its FSCK that's causing the problem. So if you have a problem DO NOT RUN FSCK ON IT :)

For those who have had data loss, i'd recommend running either Diskwarrior, Drive X, or Datarecovery.

I'd also try seeing if Open Firmware can get contents on the drive.

(I've had huge fails where the system wrapped has bee mightly ********* and I knew it was recoverable cause OF could still see the data)

mustang_dvs

Oct 30, 2003, 10:18 PM

The problem, at least on the surface, seems to be that FSCK reads the HFS and HFS+ formatted drives as UFS formatted, with severe directory damage. FSCK attempts to fix the "UFS" volume, and in so doing, overwrites the functional, undamaged HFS directory with UFS data, rendering the disk all but useless.

And yes, experience (not mine, personally) has proven that both FW400 and FW800 drives are susceptible.

sonicsessions

Oct 30, 2003, 10:28 PM

strange... I just upgraded on monday, I have a Wiebtech Fire800 external drive, and have had no problems at all. Guess I'm lucky.

itsbetteronamac

Oct 30, 2003, 10:32 PM

Ok, what I don't get is how none of this was relized with all the monthes of developer testing. I am sure that the developers who had panther monthes ago had external hard drives. Also I think that people wanted panther so badly that apple rushed the process and didn't work out the bugs. Personally, I could have waited another month, if Apple could have fixed the problems before the Gold Master.

ryme4reson

Oct 30, 2003, 10:36 PM

I was running 10.2 on an externaml FW disk, and now I copied over my 6K mp3 to my PowerBook and now many of the songs are cut in half. They are full length, but in iTunes they play the first 10 seconds, then switch songs. Anyone know how to fix that? THanks

ITR 81

Oct 30, 2003, 11:32 PM

It seems like this only affecting folks with Oxford 922 bridge chip-set and not any other chip-set. So whatever you do not buy ex-drive with Oxford 922 bridge in it.

Makosuke

Oct 30, 2003, 11:51 PM

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
Why are there 6 positive votes? This is a major issue that could, and most likely has, cause data loss. The positive thing is that Apple is aknowledging it, and hopefully doing something about it. I'd rate this item positively for that reason, too, since that's the story, not that the problem exists--I knew that since last Friday, since I always scan troubleshooting reports of early adopters before leaping in myself.

As for how this didn't get caught earlier, it's a bit of a mystery, but I don't think it's quite as guaranteed a problem as it seems. The people who have it (and note that there are a couple of similar data loss problems being reported that aren't as repeatable or severe, just as with every major system upgrade) seem to find it very repeatable, but there are people with almost identical hardware setups that don't have the same problem, so it would seem that it's not as cut and dried as 922=bad, in which case surely Apple would've caught it.

For reference, the problem that's causing the most headache is one where, after restarting (via the menu command or a software install restart), the contents of an attached firewire drive are killed in a big way. It's only after a restart, and definitely doesn't affect all attached drives (or even, apparently, all partitions on the attached drive), so never restarting with a FW drive mounted is protection, so long as you're careful.

Genie

Oct 31, 2003, 12:03 AM

http://www.geniesongs.com/genie/endorsements/apple/Genie-G5Computer50pix.jpg (http://www.geniesongs.com/genie/endorsements/apple/g5opening/index.htm)
I had a firewire 400 drive get corrupted in Jaguar a few weeks ago.

chewbaccapits

Oct 31, 2003, 12:10 AM

How would you know if your drive has this OXFORD bridge?

Viv

Oct 31, 2003, 03:29 AM

Originally posted by Genie
http://www.geniesongs.com/genie/endorsements/apple/Genie-G5Computer50pix.jpg (http://www.geniesongs.com/genie/endorsements/apple/g5opening/index.htm)
I had a firewire 400 drive get corrupted in Jaguar a few weeks ago.

Me too! a Lacie 120Gb FW400, just suddenly trashed itself on restart.

I recovered it with Discwarrior but lost a 13Gb image file, not to bad as it saved the remaining 40Gb.

Viv

MacBandit

Oct 31, 2003, 03:47 AM

Originally posted by Makosuke
The positive thing is that Apple is aknowledging it, and hopefully doing something about it. I'd rate this item positively for that reason, too, since that's the story, not that the problem exists--I knew that since last Friday, since I always scan troubleshooting reports of early adopters before leaping in myself.

As for how this didn't get caught earlier, it's a bit of a mystery, but I don't think it's quite as guaranteed a problem as it seems. The people who have it (and note that there are a couple of similar data loss problems being reported that aren't as repeatable or severe, just as with every major system upgrade) seem to find it very repeatable, but there are people with almost identical hardware setups that don't have the same problem, so it would seem that it's not as cut and dried as 922=bad, in which case surely Apple would've caught it.

For reference, the problem that's causing the most headache is one where, after restarting (via the menu command or a software install restart), the contents of an attached firewire drive are killed in a big way. It's only after a restart, and definitely doesn't affect all attached drives (or even, apparently, all partitions on the attached drive), so never restarting with a FW drive mounted is protection, so long as you're careful.

This is a good thing yes, but it's not Apple acknowledging their problem. They have found the problem in the Oxford chipset and it may exist in the 911 chipset also.

Again I repeat this is not Apples fault. If you want to scream to someone go to Oxford Apple is trying to help them fix their chipset since Apple developed the 1394 standard that is Firewire.

Also since all data isn't overwritten there should be a way to write a patch to temporarily fix the bad data on the drive so that it can be read and everything removed so it can be reformatted and fixed properly. If this isn't doable a good hard drive data recovery company should be able to recover the lost data.

Genie

Oct 31, 2003, 04:07 AM

When my FW 400 drive went bad (Diskwarrior couldn't even fix it), I copied everything over to an ide drive, and bit-for-bit compared it using Toast's compare feature. The data matched. Of course that doesn't mean that some of it wasn't trashed. But it does mean that you can read from the drive after the damage happens long enough to move your stuff over.

This is making SATA extrnal drives look REAL good.

kangaroo

Oct 31, 2003, 04:07 AM

On LaCie's support site (http://www.lacie.com/support/drivers/) the following is listed:

Silverlining Updater v6.4.8a

Critical firmware update for d2 and Big Disk FireWire 800 disk drives. Resolve issues with Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) systems.
Also, updated firmware for d2 FireWire 400 drives. New firmware improves performance

The link to the download is labeled: <MacOS9>.

Being new to the Mac environment...does this mean that in order to properly download/run this updater I must have first booted in 9?

My system: PBG4 15" 1.25 running 10.3 w/LaCie D2 FW800 250

Thanks.

Also...

1) Can we assume that this 'LaCie' updater resolves the problem sited in this topic?

2) Assuming it is true...there's no doubt that data loss is an "issue" as in "Resolve issues with Mac OS X..."but doesn't stating it in such a benign, bland (techno-indifferent) way attempt to undercut the seriousness of the problem?:mad:

Makosuke

Oct 31, 2003, 04:35 AM

Originally posted by kangaroo
The link to the download is labeled: <MacOS9>.

Being new to the Mac environment...does this mean that in order to properly download/run this updater I must have first booted in 9? Yes, that's exactly what it means, which also means you can't use it, since your machine (nor most to come out of Apple for a while now) won't boot in 9. It's a pretty stupid thing on LaCie's part, but one assumes they'll get an X updater out posthaste.

And NO, I would not automatically assume this fixes the problem--it seems to be more than that simple of a conflict, and in any case since it's a severe issue it'd be a lot safer to wait a few days and see what additional information comes out.

Genie

Oct 31, 2003, 04:40 AM

http://www.geniesongs.com/genie/endorsements/apple/Genie-G5Computer50pix.jpg (http://www.geniesongs.com/genie/endorsements/apple/g5opening/index.htm)
I've taken all my drives out of their firewire enclosures and hooked them up to ATA buses.

AhmedFaisal

Oct 31, 2003, 06:01 AM

I experience Data loss on the PC with Linux and WinBlows as well as in OS9/X any given version with the Oxford Chipset FW400 HD enclosure I have. It is clearly visible when I transfer freshly encoded DivX Home Videos onto the drive and back, before DivFix and DivX Tool reported no errors, afterwards they report corrupted data errors. As I said this happens on both WinBlows and Mac. I do not experience this with other FireWire enclosures. The drive is fine since I hooked it to an IDE in my PC and did a surface check which reports no bad sectors. Remember the Graphics Card issue a few days ago which reported that due to a long standing manufacturing error those were unusable in OSX.3? Well I think the same goes for the Oxfords, they were present before but in OSX.3 they really bombed because some stuff about the OS was changed that made the HW Bug surface more.
Cheers,

Ahmed

kangaroo

Oct 31, 2003, 06:26 AM

Originally posted by Makosuke
Yes, that's exactly what it means, which also means you can't use it, since your machine (nor most to come out of Apple for a while now) won't boot in 9. It's a pretty stupid thing on LaCie's part, but one assumes they'll get an X updater out posthaste.

And NO, I would not automatically assume this fixes the problem--it seems to be more than that simple of a conflict, and in any case since it's a severe issue it'd be a lot safer to wait a few days and see what additional information comes out.

Thanks for the info.

Since I'm in the return period on the LaCie...should I return it and bypass this problem? If so, any recommendations on an alternative drive?

Lancetx

Oct 31, 2003, 06:28 AM

Originally posted by MacBandit
This is a good thing yes, but it's not Apple acknowledging their problem.

Agreed. But kudos to Apple for quickly getting to the bottom of it and working with the drive manufacturers to get fixes out there and available so fast. As well as LaCie, now both WiebeTech and OWC also have firmware updates posted and available to correct the issue.

mac3dX

Oct 31, 2003, 08:53 AM

2 of my FW400 enclosures no longer work after I upgraded to 10.2.6 on my G4 733. The drives (which are IBM and Maxtor) work fine when installed in the internal drive bays. A friend of mine had the exact same thing happen.

So, after I got my dual G5, I tried again. No luck. Apple's upgrade fried 2 firewire enclosures. Then I bought a new enclosure, put one of the old drives in there, and it's been working flawlessly.

I wish Apple would address this FW 400 problem also.

dombi

Oct 31, 2003, 09:39 AM

Originally posted by chewbaccapits
How would you know if your drive has this OXFORD bridge?

In the Terminal try to type this:

system_profiler

if you would like to save the file to your desktop type:

system_profiler > ~/Desktop/output.txt

Then find the info in there for your drive.

Good luck,

dombi

Craigy

Oct 31, 2003, 10:10 AM

Can anyone suggest a non oxford 3.5" enclosure for my 160gig maxtor drive. Runing a Dual G4 1.25 at the moment and are in the process of replacing this with a G5 and Panther.

railthinner

Oct 31, 2003, 10:24 AM

For readers of news.com this is presented really awfully, along with some other bad Apple news. Example "Panther glitch erases some hard drives" If this is indeed an issue with the oxford chipset a retraction is in order.

Totalshock

Oct 31, 2003, 11:15 AM

Originally posted by railthinner
For readers of news.com this is presented really awfully, along with some other bad Apple news. Example "Panther glitch erases some hard drives" If this is indeed an issue with the oxford chipset a retraction is in order.

Why would a retraction be in order? If the Oxford chipset had come into the market after Panther and claimed compatibility with Panther, then I could see it was the vendors' faults, and would be screaming for LaCie (et al) to face the music about now.

But the problem here is that new software which was represented by Apple (either explicitly or implicitly) as ready for prime-time and compatible with the things Mac users are using and doing, clearly is not. I don't see how this can be successfully spun as anybody's fault but Apple's. Don't tell me that somewhere in the interoperability labs in Cupertino, someone didn't plug in a d2 drive to Panther and go "Ooopsie... that's going to be a problem."

Awimoway

Oct 31, 2003, 11:17 AM

Originally posted by dombi
In the Terminal try to type this:

system_profiler

if you would like to save the file to your desktop type:

system_profiler > ~/Desktop/output.txt

Then find the info in there for your drive.

Good luck,

dombi

All right, here's what System Profiler says about my firewire 400 LaCie drive:

Speed: 400 Mb/sec Speed

LaCie 1394 Disk drive LUN 0:

Capacity: 74.53 GB
Manufacturer: LaCie Group SA
Model: LaCie 1394 Disk drive LUN 0
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk2
OS9 Drivers: Yes
Speed: 400 Mb/sec Speed
Unit Spec Id: 24734
Firmware Revision: 3.19
Unit Software Version: 10483

Extra HD:

Capacity: 74.53 GB
Available: 24.46 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: HFS+
BSD Name: disk2s9
Mount Point: /Volumes/Extra HD

I don't see anything about "Oxford 922" and my firmware number is nowhere near 1.02. Does this mean I'm safe? So far I haven't had a single problem with my drive in Panther. Thanks.

MacBandit

Oct 31, 2003, 12:26 PM

Originally posted by Totalshock
Why would a retraction be in order? If the Oxford chipset had come into the market after Panther and claimed compatibility with Panther, then I could see it was the vendors' faults, and would be screaming for LaCie (et al) to face the music about now.

But the problem here is that new software which was represented by Apple (either explicitly or implicitly) as ready for prime-time and compatible with the things Mac users are using and doing, clearly is not. I don't see how this can be successfully spun as anybody's fault but Apple's. Don't tell me that somewhere in the interoperability labs in Cupertino, someone didn't plug in a d2 drive to Panther and go "Ooopsie... that's going to be a problem."

No the problem is with the chipset manufacturer. Apple made the standard for the chipset and it's obvious that they have not followed the standard to the 'T' in some way or another. Besides if you read this thread completely you will see that this problem is surfacing in 10.2, 10.3, and XP. So the problem is not the 10.3 update.

fatfish

Oct 31, 2003, 12:27 PM

I too don't know whether I have this oxford chipset, been to system profiler and see no mention of oxford.

Got two FW400 drives with firmware revision numbers 16.0 and GAK8 and a FW800 drive with no firmware revision numberat all.

I have already restarted (a few times) under panther and everything seems OK.

Can I assume if my disks were going to be trashed it would have happened already.

Ive got about 460 Gb of irreplaceable movies on my FW800, so I'm a bit nervous about this.

BTW don't know if it's relevent but non of the drives have OS9 drivers installed.

MacBandit

Oct 31, 2003, 12:29 PM

Originally posted by fatfish
I too don't know whether I have this oxford chipset, been to system profiler and see no mention of oxford.

Got two FW400 drives with firmware revision numbers 16.0 and GAK8 and a FW800 drive with no firmware revision numberat all.

I have already restarted (a few times) under panther and everything seems OK.

Can I assume if my disks were going to be trashed it would have happened already.

Ive got about 460 Gb of irreplaceable movies on my FW800, so I'm a bit nervous about this.

BTW don't know if it's relevent but non of the drives have OS9 drivers installed.

The way to find out if you have the Oxford chipset is to go to the Firewire drive manufacturers website and look for documentation on your specific drive. If it doesn't mention the chipset there then you need to email or call them and ask them.

railthinner

Oct 31, 2003, 12:54 PM

Originally posted by Totalshock
Why would a retraction be in order?"

I'm not sure how much more plain I can make this -- "IF." !!

If there is no glitch in Panther and it's the oxford chipset: news.com absolutely needs to correct their error.

If there is a glitch in Panther: news.com stands correct in their headline.

In my opinion (yes just an opinon here) The headline is irresponsible in either case, because it has not yet been determined exactly what the cause of the problem is. At least not at the time that was published.

Genie

Oct 31, 2003, 02:15 PM

Originally posted by Craigy
Can anyone suggest a non oxford 3.5" enclosure for my 160gig maxtor drive. Runing a Dual G4 1.25 at the moment and are in the process of replacing this with a G5 and Panther.

iocombo is selling a sata enclosure for about $60. It has a pata to sata bridge card. I've been thinking about getting it.

Fitzcaraldo

Nov 1, 2003, 09:46 PM

I had an issue with a disappearing (fw400) drive in 10.2. after a forced re start. When trying to mount this laCie D2 80GB I got the "Corrupt volume message... Not having OSX disk tools I mounted the volume in OS9 with silverlining (laCie Driver) and ran a repair from there (directory was stated as the error) with OS9 disk utility. The disk was fine an NO data was lost.

What I have an Issue with is the whole spectrum of NO advice from Apple re disc integrity and Tools... This has been an issue from day one of OSX an I don't feel I am wrong in saying that user data is by far the most valuable asset in a system and apple should assure its customers?

This is not an area where I care about competative products...

MacBandit

Nov 2, 2003, 07:56 PM

Originally posted by Fitzcaraldo
...........What I have an Issue with is the whole spectrum of NO advice from Apple re disc integrity and Tools... This has been an issue from day one of OSX an I don't feel I am wrong in saying that user data is by far the most valuable asset in a system and apple should assure its customers?

This is not an area where I care about competative products...

Could you reword or expand on that paragraph. I'm not totally sure what you are saying you want.

kangaroo

Nov 3, 2003, 06:47 AM

i contacted lacie and they said they hope to have a panther update available this week.

nlz

Nov 4, 2003, 01:29 AM

Well that's just great. I just tried burning my first CD on my external Formac FW400 drive... and got my first "sense key" hardware failure ever. The drive just reset itself in the process.

I've had the drive for quite a while (it's still 16x), so I don't think it has the mentioned chipset.

From my experience, Panther broke several of features I use, and the finder crashes on me regularly when dragging multiple files with preview thumbnails activated. Not the best update i've seen from Apple. :mad:

MacBandit

Nov 4, 2003, 01:38 AM

Originally posted by nlz
Well that's just great. I just tried burning my first CD on my external Formac FW400 drive... and got my first "sense key" hardware failure ever. The drive just reset itself in the process.

I've had the drive for quite a while (it's still 16x), so I don't think it has the mentioned chipset.

From my experience, Panther broke several of features I use, and the finder crashes on me regularly when dragging multiple files with preview thumbnails activated. Not the best update i've seen from Apple. :mad:

Did you do a clean install or an update install?

I have had reason since installing to drag hundreds of files at once with the preview option and my only observation is that it's much faster than 10.2.

So far no problems for me whatsoever with 10.3. A few system haxies are broken but I hardly consider that Apples fault.

Also if your read this thread clear through you will see that the firewire issue is not with Apple or 10.3 but with that chipset. That chipset is having problems with Mac all versions of the Mac OS from 9-10.3 and with Windows XP.

Genie

Nov 4, 2003, 01:53 AM

I'm having no Panther problems- adn LOVE Expose´!

But I did disconnect all of my Firewire hard drives and move them to ATA bus-es until this whole thing is verified over...

wdlove

Nov 4, 2003, 11:03 AM

Originally posted by kangaroo
i contacted lacie and they said they hope to have a panther update available this week.

I'm suprised that Lacie had this problem. Lacie is the product that is sold at my local Apple Store. It was highly recommended by the staff. All the problems with Panther and the G5 are very discouraging.

Genie, I'm not sure what you mean by move them to ATA buses?

nlz

Nov 4, 2003, 11:37 AM

Originally posted by MacBandit
Did you do a clean install or an update install?

Archive install. Worked nicely because I had strictly kept all personal data and Library stuff in my home directory and never moved Apple software from its default location.

Also if your read this thread clear through you will see that the firewire issue is not with Apple or 10.3 but with that chipset. That chipset is having problems with Mac all versions of the Mac OS from 9-10.3 and with Windows XP.

Indeed that's not my understanding after reading this thread through. It sounds more like "I have a FW drive that used to work, and Panther broke it" and less like "My drive was always broken, but I just decided to start complaining because Panther came out". ;)

Guess I'm just a little weary right now because it's not all better with Panther and two of my friends who had switched are now switching back because of GPU problems on their iBooks, money back, lawyers involved and all... :(

MacBandit

Nov 4, 2003, 11:37 AM

MacBandit

Nov 4, 2003, 11:42 AM

Originally posted by nlz
Archive install. Worked nicely because I had strictly kept all personal data and Library stuff in my home directory and never moved Apple software from its default location.

Indeed that's not my understanding after reading this thread through. It sounds more like "I have a FW drive that used to work, and Panther broke it" and less like "My drive was always broken, but I just decided to start complaining because Panther came out". ;)

Guess I'm just a little weary right now because it's not all better with Panther and two of my friends who had switched are now switching back because of GPU problems on their iBooks, money back, lawyers involved and all... :(

Sounds like you did an Archive install with the option to copy your old prefs over. This is not much better than doing and upgrade install. At the very least you should do an archive install without the option to copy prefs. Then manually only copy the the prefs over that you absolutely have to have (i.e. your mailbox). Any thing you can manually reconfigure do so.

Well there are people in this thread that say their drive has died under OS9. There are also people in this thread that have said their drive has died under 10.2 and Windows XP.

Genie

Nov 4, 2003, 12:26 PM

Originally posted by wdlove
I'm suprised that Lacie had this problem. Lacie is the product that is sold at my local Apple Store. It was highly recommended by the staff. All the problems with Panther and the G5 are very discouraging.

Genie, I'm not sure what you mean by move them to ATA buses?

Not that you really have to, but I just pulled the firewire drives out of the firewire enclosures and hooked them up to internal ide busses or to an acard/siig raid card. They run faster that way, but are not as flexible in distance from the computer and you can't hot-plug them.

Really, do'nt worry, Panther's wonderful- any move to a new operating system is going to have a few bumps. (Apple didn't pay me to say that!)

:)