How bizarre - iPod mounting issue

[crazytom]

Ever since I've gotten my iPod, I've struggled with the magic sequence to get it to mount every time I put it in it's dock. It seems that I forever tried various combinations with my other firewire gear and I'd usually have to reboot my machine to get it to work.

Today, I only had my iPod and an external CD burner plugged in. The iPod and the burner were listed as being on the FW bus, but the iPod would incessantly flash "Do Not Disconnect" and wouldn't mount. I finally unplugged all FW devices, plugged the iPod back in and docked it. Voila! Mounts & updates just fine. No reboot required. I just wanted to share my excitement with everyone, but I really wish I could use my 7 FW devices without having to climb behind my computer every time!!!

So far, I can't use any other FW devices when my iPod or my Canon Elura are connected---those two devices really gum up the works. Anyone else have this problem?

 

[rainman::|:|]

I've found that some firewire bridges can be picky about which order they're plugged in... My iPod will kill my external HD, unless it's plugged into the 2nd port on the HD itself. These types of issues can be very frustrating... My printer will work plugged into my 3rd party USB keyboard, but when i attach a camera (FinePix S3000) there, it corrupts permissions everywhere on my drive. I'd say, keep playing with combinations if any devices are passthrough, or look into a powered hub-- i understand those clear up many issues. The ones that stack would be best, two 4-ports, or one 8-port if they make them (i don't know many people with more than 4 devices, so i'm not sure).

paul

 

[crazytom]

*whew* I'm glad I'm not the only one! Thanks for the input!

I do have a Belkin 6-port powered hub, but that didn't help either. It just ended up being another device of torture trying to figure out the correct sequence of devices....I lost lots of data on 2 drives because I wasn't paying close attention to what I was doing.


Which brings me to a different question:

Would it be better to chain all of my FW hard drives? or give them their own port on the hub? I've gotten pretty freaked about my past experiences and really don't trust anything more that one device at one time.

 

[rainman::|:|]

I'd say you should try this: count the number of dead-end devices you have (the ones that terminate the chain; have no passthrough port) and start that many chains. I'm hoping it's two, because then you can have a chain coming off of each firewire port. Put the two hard drives at the bottom (closest to the computer) of each chain, then plug into that. Try combining things differently, see if you can get it to work together... I would think this would be the best way to handle it...

If you have more than 2 chains (as deterimined above, by the number of dead-end devices), put your most-used devices in a chain started by a hard drive, to begin with at least. Drive bridges seem to like being low on the chain. But again, play around with it, to whatever degree you can.

You should be able to have these devices plugged in at once... Especially as Apple and others have touted, that any Firewire bus can support up to 127 devices. 7 should be no sweat. Unfortunately each vendor (including Apple) will probably try to blame the others' devices for the problem if you contact them for support. Worth a try anyway.

paul

 

[Sedulous]

Yeah, I'm having the same problem. I have a 52x lacie CD-RW and an iPod. They do not play well together. I get frequent kernal panics aside from trouble mounting the iPod. It is really annoying.

 

[big]

Sounds like you've been bitten by Apple's firewire bug, does your iPod mount in USB? Mine will not through Firewire (just charge), though it will mount in USB... have you tried this?