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2010 mac pro won't mount 2 firewire devices

N

number1Tango

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 12, 2010
11
0
Hey guys, been lurking on the forums a bit and just bought a new 6core 3.33 mac pro. Im already have 2 issues with it sadly :( . I do a lot of video editing, and my 1st problem is I have 2 firewire 800 ports being used, 1 for dumping footage and 1 for my external gtech drive. The mac pro will NOT recognize both at the same time, either my gtech will go offline and dismount or the camera will not be recognized in FCP. Any suggestions? I had a 24" imac before this and I had the same issue, I could not mount more than 1 firewire port at the same time. this sucks because there are several 800 ports :confused:

2nd problem, the mac pro will NOT boot to desktop when the external drive is plugged in on startup. It will stay on a "blue" screen until i disconnect the drive and hit ESC several times... whats going on??? Any suggestions?

btw, when i connect the gtech via usb and the camera firewire, it works fine. lame... did I get a dud? or is this a common issue? Thanks for the help.
 
number1Tango said:
Hey guys, been lurking on the forums a bit and just bought a new 6core 3.33 mac pro. Im already have 2 issues with it sadly :( . I do a lot of video editing, and my 1st problem is I have 2 firewire 800 ports being used, 1 for dumping footage and 1 for my external gtech drive. The mac pro will NOT recognize both at the same time, either my gtech will go offline and dismount or the camera will not be recognized in FCP. Any suggestions? I had a 24" imac before this and I had the same issue, I could not mount more than 1 firewire port at the same time. this sucks because there are several 800 ports :confused:

2nd problem, the mac pro will NOT boot to desktop when the external drive is plugged in on startup. It will stay on a "blue" screen until i disconnect the drive and hit ESC several times... whats going on??? Any suggestions?

btw, when i connect the gtech via usb and the camera firewire, it works fine. lame... did I get a dud? or is this a common issue? Thanks for the help.
Click to expand...

It's not the computer that's the dud, it's the drive. Can you mount either drive, or just one particular drive? Maybe one needs to be repaired/retired. The fact that you couldn't mount them both on your iMac is a clue. I've never ever had a problem mounting firewire drives (even when they're chained together) with any Mac I've worked on, unless the drives were crap.
 
thnx for the advice, I havn't tried other external drives, Ive been using gtech drives because ive read tons of great reviews about them, maybe ill try some other external drives out like LaCie or something. I just find it weird that i couldn't connect a xternal and a camera via firewire at the same time... if i have both plugged it will only read 1, so if i have the camera plugged in first it will read that over the drive. if i have the drive plugged in first it will not recognize the camera firewire cable.
 
I have a similar issue with your 2nd problem;

2nd problem, the mac pro will NOT boot to desktop when the external drive is plugged in on startup. It will stay on a "blue" screen until i disconnect the drive and hit ESC several times... whats going on??? Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

If I have my firewire sound card (Focusrite Saffire) connected to my MacBook Pro at startup, it takes around 30 seconds longer to boot, and ocassionally will not finish logging on, usually giving a blue screen, or not loading the menu bar at the top. On disconnecting the sound card everything carries on normally.

I might check the logs, see if anything funny's going on there.
 
It is funny but this is why I left my mac mini's FW800 sucks and is not reliable enough. okay the obvious cables do you use good ones or low end crap. here is a link for a good quality cable.


http://www.lindy-usa.com/1m-premium-firewire-800-cable-9-pin-beta-male-to-9-pin-beta-male/30755.html

note it is not so much that the wire part is better. the connector is tight. bad fw cables cause a ton of problems..


I found a great firewire hub actually two great ones. Fw hubs are good because the make less wear and tear on the computer jack or the enclosure jack. They extend your distance by a factor of 2 since they have a wallwart. They allow more fw800 devices which is big with a mac mini. not so much with a mac pro. They are:

stable stable stable one more time stable here are the links:


http://www.nitroav.com/categories/67/ 8 ports 1 in 7 out has its own power wallwart costly 150


http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ..._VS30FW_3_Port_FireWire_800_Repeater_Hub.html

3 ports 1 in 2 out has its own power wallwart around 90 email for a discount from 96.


you may have a bad enclosure you may have a bad camera. good luck troubleshooting it. of course every single piece of gear you have could work fine and your problem may be the fw800 chips firmware does not like each other. or the osx and the 2 chips don't like each other. which means two is company 3 is a crowd. ie buy a new fw800 drive from another company and make sure the fw800 chip in it is different.




As an aside all of the above links are for better quality products I make $0 in kickbacks. I have used all of them and in fact own them right now. the best fw800 cable that came with an enclosure has been in the seagate free agent for mac boxes. I emailed seagate trying to source the cable but they never answered me.
 
number1Tango said:
thnx for the advice, I havn't tried other external drives, Ive been using gtech drives because ive read tons of great reviews about them, maybe ill try some other external drives out like LaCie or something. I just find it weird that i couldn't connect a xternal and a camera via firewire at the same time... if i have both plugged it will only read 1, so if i have the camera plugged in first it will read that over the drive. if i have the drive plugged in first it will not recognize the camera firewire cable.
Click to expand...

Oh sorry, I thought you said you had two drives. The G-Tech's are supposed to be good, yes.

Try chaining your camera to the G-Tech drive. I've done this many times in the past and had no dropped frames. It's the way FW was designed to be used, anyway. But you should be able to use both at the same time on your computer. The computer FW's share the same bus, though, if I'm not mistaken.

You could try zapping your PRAM. I've had that solve some weird performance problems in the past.
 
I just tried Daisy chaining the camera and the external, and the computer just recognizes the gtech drive... im going to go ahead and try different cables, and borrow a couple other drives from friends and see if I have the same problem with different drives (hopefully not). Hell, maybe its not even the gtech drive and its the camera thats causing problems. Ill have to trouble shoot it more. I also tried zapping the PRAM and still the same problem


thanks for all the help guys!
 
the camera is a JVC GY-HD110, ive used this camera for months and months with no problems. I do put it in VTR mode and all my import settings are correct (the import settings are tricky for this jvc but the import settings are verified and have worked flawless for over 100+ hours). it only becomes an issue when both are plugged in at the same time regardless of which device was plugged in first, one or the other will go offline.
 
number1Tango said:
the camera is a JVC GY-HD110, ive used this camera for months and months with no problems. I do put it in VTR mode and all my import settings are correct (the import settings are tricky for this jvc but the import settings are verified and have worked flawless for over 100+ hours). it only becomes an issue when both are plugged in at the same time regardless of which device was plugged in first, one or the other will go offline.
Click to expand...

I have seen this in mac minis. try to borrow a different fw800 drive with a different chip in it . oxford 911 934 936 all come to mind. try and see what chip is in your g tech. if all your fw800 cables are good and all the jacks are good it sounds like the 2 chips one from each piece of gear don't like each other.
 
I managed to get another firewire 800 external from a friend. Im HAPPY to say that BOTH my gtech and my friends external are both working on firewire 800 at the same time. so now i know its an issue with the camera and the gtech drive and not the computer :cool: i don't have the camera with me today so i can't test if it will dismount the other external if they are both plugged in.

philipma1957: maybe this was the case with the chipsets? im not sure.

but thank you everyone for all your help!
 
number1Tango said:
I managed to get another firewire 800 external from a friend. Im HAPPY to say that BOTH my gtech and my friends external are both working on firewire 800 at the same time. so now i know its an issue with the camera and the gtech drive and not the computer :cool: i don't have the camera with me today so i can't test if it will dismount the other external if they are both plugged in.

philipma1957: maybe this was the case with the chipsets? im not sure.
Click to expand...

Awesome! philipma1957 was right for sure. I think some devices just don't get along. Glad you got it fixed!

For the record, I've never ever had a FireWire or USB problem on a Mac that wasn't related to the external device. When we were running Avid Xpress Pro on a bunch of HP Windoze machines, though...that was a much uglier story.
 
Some FW camcorders are fussy when they have to share a bus with other devices. Canons in particular are notorious for that. You can get around that issue by installing a PCIe FW800 expansion card so that you can keep the camcorder and the drives on separate buses. Just a thought...
 
CaptainChunk said:
Some FW camcorders are fussy when they have to share a bus with other devices. Canons in particular are notorious for that. You can get around that issue by installing a PCIe FW800 expansion card so that you can keep the camcorder and the drives on separate buses. Just a thought...
Click to expand...

that may work. the chips in each piece of gear don't interact on the same bus. here is a link for a fw800 card.



http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Aaxeon/FWB68300/

owc is good with returns you may find that using the mac pro jack for your camera and using this for your other fw800 and fw400 gear will work.
 
I use an SIIG PCIe FW800 card with my Sony pro video camera and deck. Works great and doesn't interfere with the onboard bus.

I originally got it because I didn't want hot-swapping FireWire to mess up my onboard FireWire. But I've never had any issues with that.
 
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