Fire Wire HD Crashes PowerMac

J

jkeruac

Guest
I have a U.S. Logic 60GB External FW HD that doesn't like my Mac. Every time I attempt to use this drive it not only locks up, but locks up my entire computer, forcing me to shut down using the button on the front of the computer. The drive works for about 20-30 seconds before this occurs. It's not the FW HD because it works perfectly on my 17 inch Power book. The FW ports work just fine to capture Video for FCP & iMovie. I tried the option-apple-R-P on restart and that hasn't helped. Please help me, without this working I'm forced to work at the office instead of in my bathrobe and this can't continue.
 
Joined
Jul 22, 2003
Messages
6,999
Reaction score
187
Points
63
Location
Hamilton College
Your Mac's Specs
20" iMac C2D 2.16ghz, 13" MacBook 2.0ghz, 60gb iPod vid, 1gb nano
thats strange i was gonna say maybe its the drive until i saw that it works perfectly. what version of OS are you using
 
OP
J

jkeruac

Guest
When I got the drive I was on 10.2.6 but updated to 10.2.8, the same as the powerbook that runs fine with the drive.
 
Joined
Jul 22, 2003
Messages
6,999
Reaction score
187
Points
63
Location
Hamilton College
Your Mac's Specs
20" iMac C2D 2.16ghz, 13" MacBook 2.0ghz, 60gb iPod vid, 1gb nano
im not sure if this would affect it but they always say to start them up in this order

1. have mac already on
2. plug the hd into the ac power
3. plug firewire into mac
 
OP
R

RobDreugan

Guest
Assuming you have extra firewire ports, have you tried using different ones on the system that crashes?

If you wanna diagnose something lets go over the 4 or 5 easiest possibilities.

1. Bad drive: ( works on other system, that's out )
2. Bad Cable: ( works on other system )
3. Bad Firewire Port on crashing system: ( Dunno )
solution: Use another known working firewire device on the crashing system's firewire port to test if its working properly
4. Corrupt OS: ( dunno )
solution: If another firewire device is working on the same port, on the crashing system, maybe there's a corrupt file or something, and doing a first aid repair might help.
5. Can't figure it out
solution: Throw everything out of the window

I did IT work on pc's for a very long time, this is kinda the way you trouble shoot a PC, but in theory this still applies to macs. There's probably a few other things I don't know that you can do on Mac, but hopefully this is a start.
 
OP
J

jkeruac

Guest
I've tried this and other orders (which maybe I shouldn't have)

I've also have two firewhire ports which both work fine for importing video off a DV camera into FCP 3 & iMovie.

I will work on the First aid of the OS, but I'll admit ignorance in maintainence (probably why i'm in this position in the first place) and would appreciate suggestions on resources or software.

Thanks in advance.
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top