Help! New network hard drive, but I cant figure out how to get my Mac networked to it

[motulist]

I just bought a Fantom 500 Gb usb + ethernet network drive, and I need serious help getting it to appear over ethernet.

History: It sort of worked out of the box as USB, and one time I actually sort of got it to appear as a server over ethernet, but both ways produced corrupt files when I copied over from my internal. Disk repair didn't work, but I saw it was MS-DOS formatted, so I saved the files that were pre-instlled on the disk, reformatted as a Mac OS extended journaled, then recopied the pre-installed files back. Now it works perfectly as a USB drive, files copy over and toast compares them as identical.

Problem: I can't get it to show up as a network drive.

Settings and Clues: I have it connected directly out of the drive's ethernet port and into my Mac's ethernet port using the ethernet cable the drive came with.

In my network system pref I have only the ethernet port enabled, TCP/IP using DHCP, and everything else unchecked. When I switch from my airport network settings over to that (attempted) disk network setting, the drive's ethernet status light blinks for about 30 seconds, then goes solid, as the manual seems to say it should do.

But it doesn't show up using the finder menu Go > network > servers. When I select Connect To Server, enter in smb://169.254.0.1/ as it say in the instructions, it says connecting, then it says "Sorry the operation could not be completed because an unexpected error occurred (Error code -50)". Once in a while it asks me to authenticate with its password, which is the default, but then it gives me the same error.

I reset the drive using its web interface utility, and the drive blinked in response, but the problem stayed the same.

OS 10.3.9
Powerbook 1 ghz

Here's the drive's manual
http://www.micronet.com/support/manuals/fdndm.pdf


I'm totally lost! HELP!!!

 

[robbieduncan]

Is your Mac using a 169.254.0.* address too? If not it won't work. Try creating a new network location and setting a static IP in this range. If that works then you will need to find out how to reconfigure the drive to be in the same range as the rest of your network...

 

[motulist]

Is your Mac using a 169.254.0.* address too? If not it won't work. Try creating a new network location and setting a static IP in this range. If that works then you will need to find out how to reconfigure the drive to be in the same range as the rest of your network...

I set my Mac to Configure IP Manually, set IP = 169.254.0.2, and tried the router = 169.254.0.2 and then tried router = blank, but neither worked. Subnet =255.255.0.0 if that makes a difference.

But this way and the old way both work in my browser to http://169.254.0.1 into the drive's interface control.

 

[robbieduncan]

So you can see the drive at an http level, but not you cannot connect over smb? Are you sure that there's not something you need to turn on in the drive configuration to make it work over the network?

 

[robbieduncan]

You are trying to SMB to the whole device. Have you created a shared SMB folder (see 3.4 in the manual) and connecting to that. If you created a folder called "test" then the address would be:

smb://169.254.0.1/test

 

[motulist]

So you can see the drive at an http level, but not you cannot connect over smb? Are you sure that there's not something you need to turn on in the drive configuration to make it work over the network?

Haha, no, I'm not sure at all. The manual is terrible, I put a link to the manual in my original post. If you can make heads or tails of it then you're the man.

Here are all the relevant screenshots I could think of.

 

[motulist]

more screenshots

 

[motulist]

last screenshots

 

[motulist]

The manual says "when connecting directly to your computer's LAN port, make sure your host computer is set to DHCP addressing, and blah blah. Does that mean this would all be much easier if I connected through the ethernet switch?

 

[itickings]

I just bought a Fantom 500 Gb usb + ethernet network drive, and I need serious help getting it to appear over ethernet.

History: It sort of worked out of the box as USB, and one time I actually sort of got it to appear as a server over ethernet, but both ways produced corrupt files when I copied over from my internal. Disk repair didn't work, but I saw it was MS-DOS formatted, so I saved the files that were pre-instlled on the disk, reformatted as a Mac OS extended journaled, then recopied the pre-installed files back. Now it works perfectly as a USB drive, files copy over and toast compares them as identical.

Problem: I can't get it to show up as a network drive.

From the linked manual:

A Note regarding formatting and file Systems: While connected via USB, your Fantom Drives Network Disk will function as a regular external USB disk drive. If you choose to reformat the disk, please be aware that reformatting the disk with a file system other then FAT32 will render the disk inaccessible via the network controller

When accessing the drive through the network, it will be the network unit that handles file system operations, not the client computers. Thus, the drive must be formatted in a way that the unit can handle.

Is the drive still formatted as Mac OS extended journaled? If so, try letting the unit reformat it through the web interface.

 

[robbieduncan]

From the linked manual:


When accessing the drive through the network, it will be the network unit that handles file system operations, not the client computers. Thus, the drive must be formatted in a way that the unit can handle.

Is the drive still formatted as Mac OS extended journaled? If so, try letting the unit reformat it through the web interface.

Good find. That will certainly be an issue. Also on one of the screenshots above it clearly shows that you have not defined any shares...

 

[DoFoT9]

i also had the same problem. was there any programs that came with your device that allow you to look for devices? i kno that lacie has a searching device which finds it then maps it.

the way that i did it was.....
1: setup your router so that it uses dhcp
2: plug the device in via USB, and grab the name that it shows when it mounts.
3: disconnect it and plug in via ethernet to your router
4: go into the router at the http level, (in here it shall tell you your ip)..if you can get into it via http then youd already have the IP..silly me!
5: hit +K and type in the IP/mount name. e.g. mine was 10.0.1.1/gall (my last name)

it should then as for passwords, or something...if your drive has passwords.

i really hope this helps you mate, if not im sorry for my bad guides

 

[motulist]

try letting the unit reformat it through the web interface.

Holy crap! That solved the 1st problem, but I still have the major original problem. I reformatted via the web interface (and it also recreated the public folder) and now the drive shows up when I connect to server and manually type in the smb address. But now it's back to the corrupt file copy problem that made me try reformatting it in the first place. Using the finder I drag and drop a 50 Mb movie file, the copy completes, but the file is messed up and when I do a compare with toast it says this:

 

[itickings]

Holy crap! That solved the first problem, but I still have the major original problem. I reformatted via the web interface (and it also recreated the public folder) and now the drive shows up when I connect to server and manually type in the smb address. But now it's back to the corrupt file copy problem that made me try reformatting it in the first place. Using the finder I drag and drop a 50 Mb movie file, the copy completes, but the file is messed up and when I do a compare with toast it says this:

Does the corruption happen when copying through both USB as well as the network?

Do you have access to another computer to test a copy from?

 

[motulist]

After the transfer of the file, disk utility returns the following error:

Verifying volume “UNTITLED”
** /dev/disk2s1
** Phase 1 - Read FAT
** Phase 2 - Check Cluster Chains
** Phase 3 - Checking Directories
`..' entry in /PUBLIC has non-zero start cluster
Correct? no
** Phase 4 - Checking for Lost Files
Next free cluster in FSInfo block (1507) not free
fix? no
6 files, 1677248 free (15256766 clusters)
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)

1 volume checked
0 HFS volumes verified
1 volume failed verification

 

[motulist]

Does the corruption happen when copying through both USB as well as the network?

Do you have access to another computer to test a copy from?

I reformatted using the drive's web interface again, and without copying anything to the disk, I disconnected the ethernet, plugged in the USB and ran disk utility and it returned the exact same error as above.

p.s. I do have access to another computer

 

[motulist]

Then I repaired the disk with disk utility, which was successful, and verified successfully.

Then I copied a different video file over the current usb connection, which copied correctly, and plays back fine, but toast had a slightly different error than before (see below).

And I ran disc utility which had a different error than before
Verifying volume “UNTITLED”
nge(3036656820)
Remove? no
Remove? no
Remove? no
Remove? no
Remove? no
Remove? no
Remove? no
Remove? no
Remove? no
Remove? no

[I removed many more repeats]


r end of directory
Truncate? no
Extend? no
has entries after end of directory
Truncate? no
Extend? no
has entries after end of directory
Truncate? no
Extend? no
has entries after end of directory
Truncate? no
Extend? no
has entries after end of directory
Truncate? no
Extend? no
has entries after end of directory
Truncate? no
Extend? no
has entries after end of directory
Truncate? no
Extend? no
has entries after end of directory
Truncate? no
Extend? no
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory

[I removed many more repeats]

with cluster out of range(3489648848)
Truncate? no
has entries after end of directory
Truncate? no
Extend? no
has entries after end of directory
Truncate? no
Extend? no
has entries after end of directory
Truncate? no
Extend? no
has entries after end of directory
Truncate? no
Extend? no
has entries after end of directory
Truncate? no
Extend? no
has entries after end of directory
Truncate? no
Extend? no
has entries after end of directory
Truncate? no
Extend? no
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
has entries after end of directory
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)

1 volume checked
0 HFS volumes verified
1 volume failed verification

 

[dpaanlka]

Is it just me, or do "network hard drives" seem like a bad idea. All the portability of an internal drive, and none of that pesky speed, reliability, or ease of use.

 

[itickings]

Is it just me, or do "network hard drives" seem like a bad idea. All the portability of an internal drive, and none of that pesky speed, reliability, or ease of use.

It is just you. Or... Well, if the bloody drives WORKED, it would be a good idea.

Unless one's up to heavy duty file oprations, such as video editing, most kinds of documents and files can be accessed over the network without noticeable delay. Very convenient access over the network from different computers without the need to have a specific computer running all the time, just a small, quiet device with low power requirements... Great in theory.

In practice however, not so great. I've looked around for a while, and am yet to find a consumer level NAS I would entrust with my data.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Hey, do you happen to have one of Apple's new wireless-N base stations? That thing can turn any USB hard drive into a "NAS" with very little effort. I have one but have yet to try out the "NAS" feature.

 

[motulist]

Update: I't's now sort of, somewhat working, but there are still a couple of major problems. When connected by USB or ethernet, I copy over some files, I open them from the new disk, and they appear to be fine. When I copy the files back again to the original disk and compare the original files with the files that made a round trip, toast reports them as identical. Then I compare the originals and the copies sitting on the network disk, it goes through a typical progress bar, then for most files it reports "Error opening copy (-39)" BUT for some files it reports they are identical. The few files that don't report an error on comparison to their copy on the network disk have seemingly nothing differentiating them from the files that do. That makes me really distrustful.

Another major problem, even after a fresh reformat with the disk's web interface software, Apple's disk utility still reports errors with the disk. After repairing the disk with disk utility, the above situation is unchanged, and I can still access the disk when I use it over ethernet. Then when I scan the disk using the drive's web interface software, it reports no errors, but Apple's disk utility changed something, so they must be in disagreement.

Is this type of voodoo common when working with network drives? If so, I'm ready to return this drive and never use a network drive again. I have a desktop that I keep on most of the time. So I think I might be better off just getting a regular USB drive and connecting it to my always-on desktop, then making a regular network between my Macs and sharing the disk over the mac-to-mac network.

Plus, because it can only have a FAT32 format, some file names are illegal and must be changed in order to be copied over to the network disk. That could turn out to be a major pain in the ass.

But if I can get this disk to be trustworthy, it'd be worth keeping.

Thoughts?

 

[DoFoT9]

man if i were you id take it back... this is giving you way to much trouble!

 

[itickings]

Update:
Is this type of voodoo common when working with network drives? If so, I'm ready to return this drive and never use a network drive again. I have a desktop that I keep on most of the time. So I think I might be better off just getting a regular USB drive and connecting it to my always-on desktop, then making a regular network between my Macs and sharing the disk over the mac-to-mac network.

But if I can get this disk to be trustworthy, it'd be worth keeping.

Thoughts?

In my experience, yes. Cheap networks drives equals pure voodoo. The file system anomalies are probably accounted for in the unit, and it should be fine as long as it's used exclusively as a network drive. Maybe check for a firmware update though..

As it seems to be serving data over SMB well enough, it might be worth keeping if the limitations of FAT32 (no >4G files, file name limits etc for example) won't bother you, but don't trust it with the only copy of any data you're not prepared to lose.

For me, this drive would be a single big no no, I would return it at once.

 

[itickings]

Hey, do you happen to have one of Apple's new wireless-N base stations? That thing can turn any USB hard drive into a "NAS" with very little effort. I have one but have yet to try out the "NAS" feature.

I kind of like to have the NAS as a separate device, but the NAS feature is of course interesting since I most likely will be buying an Airport Extreme base station anyway in September, and already have a couple of USB2 enclosures.

If you do try out that feature, please don't hesitate to share your results and experience.

A small home network, combined with Airport Extreme, USB drives, Leopard & Time Machine sounds very promising, but that would require the function to work better than most forum posts are suggesting...