Firewire HD Help

[rickvanr]

hello

ok, i bought a firewire enclosure and a hard drive
when i put it together and try and format it, its always getting stuck in apple's disk utility...

Would it matter what the jumper settings are?

is there a better tool to format the disk with?

any help/insight would be appreciated

Thanks

[IndyGopher]

Yes, the jumper settings matter. Every enclosure I have, 2 ADS Pyros, a CompUSA, and a Belkin all absolutely insist that the drive be set to Master (or Stand-Alone/Single for Western Digital drives) On the Belkin if I have the drive jumpered wrong it behaves the way you describe, on the others the drive just doesn't show up in Disk Utility.

[rickvanr]

im using a western digital... so i should set it to slave or master with slave present? because i had it as single or master and i was having the problems

[MacRAND]

Originally posted by rickvanr
im using a western digital... so i should set it to slave or master with slave present? because i had it as single or master and i was having the problems rickvanr, if you continue to have problems figuring it out,
call Western Digital's Tech Support - (800) 275-4932 they will be happy to walk you through it.
WD has always been very knowledgable, patient and helpful with my install problems; most excellent. When you buy their product, you help pay for FREE technical & customer service, so don't be shy about using it.

[sonofslim]

have you tried setting it to cable select? sometimes that's an easy solution to drive conflicts.

also, do you know what chipset is in the case? some firewire bridges have issues.

[RiseAgainst]

I would plug my enclosure in and it took like 10 minitues just to mount, and when it wasn't mounted it didn't even show up is Disk Utility.

I had the jumper set to master, but then getting fed up with it I opened the drive up and changed it to Cable Select. It now works perfectly.

I don't know if it matters, but I was using a WD drive in my enclusure too. I don't know if the jumper settings would depend on the drive itself or the enclosure.

Well the cable select setting sort of makes sense to me now becasue what happens if i have a bunch of drives are daisey chained together. Setting them all on master wouldn't really make sense.

[rickvanr]

Originally posted by sonofslim
have you tried setting it to cable select? sometimes that's an easy solution to drive conflicts.

also, do you know what chipset is in the case? some firewire bridges have issues.

i dont know what chipset it is, and i looked on the case, and it doesnt really say... it there a way to work around these issues?

[rickvanr]

ok, i went to the company that made the enclosure, and there is updated firmware to download, but in the folder i downloaded there are many different versions, and there is no read me or anything...

anyone have an idea
my enclosure is:
"Bytecc 3.5" HDD Aluminum Mobile Enclosure, part number ME-35OF (IEEE 1394)"

[rickvanr]

heres a pic

[RiseAgainst]

the OXFW911 Chipset by looking at the selected drive in the firmware updater.

Just to be sure, plug in the drive and go to "About This Mac" in the menu bar and click on "More Info"

Click on "firewire" in the left panel and then look at your device in the right panel. It should say one of those chipset numbers listed. That in the one you want.

[sonofslim]

the Oxford 911 is a quality bridge, so i wouldn't worry about that -- it's most likely a jumper thing. try slave and cable select.

also, have you tried the drive in known case to make sure the drive works? i know most people don't have spare enclosures lying around, but maybe a friend has a case you might borrow.

[rickvanr]

hello

i got her going, thanks for all the help, and excellent advice!!!

bye for now

[MacRAND]

Originally posted by rickvanr
i got her going, thanks for all the help, and excellent advice!!!
...And the solution to your dilemma was what exactly?:(

[rickvanr]

set the drive to channel select
and update the firmware to the newest version

i was either doing one thing or the other, but never both at the same time... which was the problem