iMac won't startup unless FW800 drive unattached.

[fivepoint]

When I shutdown my new iMac and try to restart it, it gets to the first gray screen (before the dark gray Apple symbol) and stops loading. It won't do anything for minutes at at time, until I unplug the FW800 cord from the back of the machine. Once unplugged, the mac continues to start up like normal, only taking about 40 seconds from that point on.

The FW800 is connected to a iomega 750 ultramax HD, with another iomega 750 ultramax HD daisychained (through FW800) to it. I use the first drive as my iTunes library drive, and the second one as a mirror-copy backup of the first drive.

Does anyone have any idea why this drive would be preventing the machine startup, and how I can solve the problem!?! Thanks.

 

[Raid]

Could it be that the mirror copy drive is confusing the start up process because it is identifying itself as the start up disk? When you say mirror copy is this through a RAID setup or some program like carbon copy cloner?

 

[fivepoint]

Could it be that the mirror copy drive is confusing the start up process because it is identifying itself as the start up disk? When you say mirror copy is this through a RAID setup or some program like carbon copy cloner?

I'm using Carbon Copy Cloner to make an exact copy of the iTunes library drive (first FW800 drive) weekly.

 

[Raid]

I'm using Carbon Copy Cloner to make an exact copy of the iTunes library drive (first FW800 drive) weekly.

Oh that is strange, I read your first post as the 2nd chained drive was a mirror of your startup disk... upon a re-read I see it now.

To me it does sound like your computer is having a hard time figuring out where the boot drive is... to check this theory you can try detaching your FW drives, boot up, then plug in your drives again and check out Startup Disk in the System Prefs. If it lists one of your FW drives, then that's probably the culprit.

 

[fivepoint]

Oh that is strange, I read your first post as the 2nd chained drive was a mirror of your startup disk... upon a re-read I see it now.

To me it does sound like your computer is having a hard time figuring out where the boot drive is... to check this theory you can try detaching your FW drives, boot up, then plug in your drives again and check out Startup Disk in the System Prefs. If it lists one of your FW drives, then that's probably the culprit.

Raid. Thanks. I'll give it a try. I'm not overly optimistic, but we'll see how it goes!

 

[Raid]

Another possibility (and really I'm just guessing here) is that the chain of drives is somehow messing things up. You could also experiment by hooking up one FW drive and booting to see if it causes the problem, then repeat with the other drive. <shrug> It might not be necessary but it's what I would do just so I know it's not a problem with one of the drives.

 

[fivepoint]

Another possibility (and really I'm just guessing here) is that the chain of drives is somehow messing things up. You could also experiment by hooking up one FW drive and booting to see if it causes the problem, then repeat with the other drive. <shrug> It might not be necessary but it's what I would do just so I know it's not a problem with one of the drives.

I will experiment. Thanks.

 

[Consultant]

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