- FireWire drive disconnects
- Posted by Soundhaspriority on February 18th, 2007
As I install the new vertical recording drives in my machine, I've been
installing the old ones in external FireWire cases. I have some problems:
1. Recognition at bootup is iffy. Usually, I have to hot-plug a drive for it
to be recognized.
2. Sometimes the drive vanishes shortly after it's recognized. If I hotplug
it again, it usually stays on as long as I've tested, which is several days.
3. When the machine is shutdown and restarted, a Windows message indicates
that "a delayed write failed", and there is some kind of temporary error
condition. It may say the drive is not formattted. Power-cycling the drive
and hotplugging it takes care of it. As far as I know, every drive should be
automatically dismounted during Windows shutdown.
The FireWire interface is the trusty OHCI compliant Pyro 64 PCI with the TI
chip, running the standard Microsoft driver. It captures from a camcorder
flawlessly. This is strictly a hard drive problem. The external drive cases
are listed as:
"Prolific PL3507 Combo Device (1394 ATAPI_Rev 1.00), IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device"
The PC is a Tyan dual processor MP with 3 gigs of ECC RAM, running XP/SP2
with all patches. It is rock-solid except for the above anomaly.
Thoughts?
Bob Morein
Dresher, PA
(215) 646-4894
- Posted by Richard Crowley on February 18th, 2007
"Soundhaspriority" wrote ...
Sounds like you need to try firewire cases with a different chip,
one that is more compatible with your PC's firewire implementation.
FWIW, I have a few random issues with the dirt-cheap USB2-
to-IDE cables, but nothing like what you are describing. I use
several both here at home and at the office, primarily for video,
but also for multi-track audio.
The only store-bought external drive case I have with Firewire
is the Western Digital "My Book". 500GB for $200 at Costco.
I haven't had any problems with it.
- Posted by GMAN on February 22nd, 2007
In article <5OydnZlMvaRlKUrYnZ2dnUVZ_sWdnZ2d@giganews.com>, "Soundhaspriority" <nowhere@nowhere.org> wrote:
drive recognition problems with mine but on occasion with XP Pro and shutdown,
it soemtimes has that delaxed write failure.
- Posted by Soundhaspriority on February 23rd, 2007
"GMAN" <glenzabr@nothere.xmission.com> wrote in message
news:erkoo7$9tk$1@news.xmission.com...
I did a little investigation. It appears to be common with the Prolific
3507. The chip comes in four versions: A,B,C, and D. "D" is brand new, so
you probably won't find it. If you have a B or a C, you can download a
firmware update from the Prolific site:
http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/Download-2.asp?ID=18
If it is an "A" chip, it cannot be flashed. Open up the case, and look at
the chip. The 2nd line has a string of digits, followed by the letter.
To flash, it has to be hooked up by the USB connection, and there has to be
a working drive recognized by Windows.
Bob Morein
Dresher, PA
(215) 646-4894
