Panther and Firewire HD

powerdocpowerdoc
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
In various sites, huge problems have been encountered with external firewire HD and panther.

This problems occured with all type of external firewire HD.

Here a few recommandations if people don't want to lose all their datas :

- Never install panther with your external HD on

- never open or close panther with an external HD on.

Allways open first Panther, then your HD. Before quiting panther, eject your external HD first via the desktop (put the icon of the external HD on the icon of the trash).



Apple is trying to fix this issue. Many people have lost important data. Be carefull.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 13
    wanderlustwanderlust Posts: 15member
    Thanks for the post. I did see this very problem with my iPod mounted as an external Firewire Disk. After closing my laptop and reopening it, I lost all communication with my iPod; iTunes didn't even see it. Even after multiple restarts. I thought all of the files that I just backed up were gone for sure seeing that the only solution I found was to actually reset my iPod, which would have erased everything. Disk Warrior, disk utility or Norton Disk Doctor fixed nothing.



    My fix was to actually launch from my Panther Installer disk and install Panther onto the iPod. I was then able to startup off my iPod. Now that I've done that, my laptop now sees the iPod again as an external firewire drive, even iTunes sees it. Everything was preserved and I was able to retrieve all files. We'll see how long that lasts though!
  • Reply 2 of 13
    ipeonipeon Posts: 1,122member
    According to MacCentral, the problems only affect FireWire 800 drives using the Oxford 922 bridge chip-set with firmware version 1.02. Full report here.
  • Reply 3 of 13
    wanderlustwanderlust Posts: 15member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by iPeon

    According to MacCentral, the problems only affect FireWire 800 drives using the Oxford 922 bridge chip-set with firmware version 1.02. Full report here.



    Yep, just read that. I'm sure my problem had nothing to do with it and was purely coincidental.
  • Reply 4 of 13
    rustedborgrustedborg Posts: 151member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by iPeon

    According to MacCentral, the problems only affect FireWire 800 drives using the Oxford 922 bridge chip-set with firmware version 1.02. Full report here.



    So, just to be clear:



    I won't have to worry about my firewire 400 external hard drive?
  • Reply 5 of 13
    kraig911kraig911 Posts: 912member
    yeah same here I got like 4 external firewire hard-drives all super important all FW400
  • Reply 6 of 13
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    The problem is not limited only to FW 800 HD.
  • Reply 7 of 13
    powelligatorpowelligator Posts: 61member
    I had a devil of a time upgrading to Panther after backing my entire system up to a FW 400 External drive. Ya', right, only affects FW 800.



    I had to disconnect all external devices, install Panther, then reconnect. Even then, every once and a while access to the external drive just seems to go away - into the evil spinning beachball of death...



    For me this was a tough, time consuming upgrade, and I've been using Macs since 1985. Makes me wonder what the layoff situation was like in Apple's testing department.



    Joe
  • Reply 8 of 13
    ti fighterti fighter Posts: 863member
    I have a LaCie FW800 drive and have had no problems, but i will start unmounting/unplugging on shutdown/startup just in case now.
  • Reply 9 of 13
    macsrgood4umacsrgood4u Posts: 3,007member
    Mac drive makers help stamp out FireWire flaw

    By Ina Fried

    CNET News.com

    October 31, 2003, 10:39 AM PT

    URL: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-5100508.html



    A number of hard-drive makers have released patches designed to prevent a glitch that has caused some FireWire 800 drives to lose data when used with the new version of Mac OS X.



    Hard-drive manufacturers LaCie, WiebeTech and Other World Computing have all posted firmware updates designed to avoid the problem, which has caused some Mac users to lose the information on their hard drives after upgrading to Mac OS X version 10.3, or Panther.



    Apple Computer said Thursday that the issue is a problem with drives that use the Oxford 922 bridge chipset with firmware version 1.02.



    "Apple is working with Oxford Semiconductor and affected drive manufacturers to resolve this issue, which resides in the Oxford 922 chipset," the company said in a statement.



    In the interim, Oxford Semiconductor released a statement saying it is looking into the matter but does not believe its chips are solely to blame.



    "We currently believe that this issue relates to a change in the way Panther uses FireWire, which affected version 1.02 of the OXUF922 driver software," the company said, adding that a later version of its firmware, 1.05, was released in September.



    "As there is currently no evidence that this issue is purely related to Oxford's 922 based drives, Oxford Semiconductor is advising all FireWire drive users to take advantage of further Panther revisions as they arise."



    WiebeTech said that the problem appears to crop up most often when FireWire 800 drives are attached to standard FireWire ports. "It has been determined that this problem between Panther and FireWire 800 drives usually occurs in circumstances involving older, slower Macintosh computers where the FireWire 800 drive is attached to a FireWire 400 port on the computer," WiebeTech CEO James Wiebe said in a statement.



    Some of the makers, including WiebeTech, recommended that owners of an affected FireWire 800 drive disconnect the drives from a Panther-equipped Mac and install the update using an older version of the Mac operating system. LaCie said its updater is a Mac OS 9 program.
  • Reply 10 of 13
    ti fighterti fighter Posts: 863member
    hmmm



    d2 USB 2.0 & FireWire 800 Hard Drives and Big Disk products

    serial numbers 1312xxxxx to 1339xxxxx and

    serial numbers 0312xxxxx to 0339xxxxx

    Shipped from April 2003 to September 30, 2003



    my drive is 0133xxxxx so i guess its unaffected??
  • Reply 11 of 13
    murbotmurbot Posts: 5,262member
    A special message for FireWire 800 disk drive users
  • Reply 12 of 13
    altivec_2.0altivec_2.0 Posts: 995member
    I wonder why this problem didn't arise when they were on beta stages of panther, such as all the previous builds, I would have thought a developer would have had a FW800 drive? At least one of them!
  • Reply 13 of 13
    macsrgood4umacsrgood4u Posts: 3,007member
    From As The Apple Turns:



    Quote:

    Even more interestingly, Macworld UK reports that Oxford Semiconductor (whose firmware is allegedly the lurking horror, here) attributes the data loss to "a change in the way Panther uses FireWire," but notes that "this problem was fixed" during Panther's development process and "now it's come back again." A Macworld source concurs that the data loss issue didn't occur in late development builds of Panther, but did affect builds prior to those released in early September. So even if Oxford is technically at fault, apparently Panther worked around the firmware issue-- at least, until the release version came out. What do you think-- maybe Apple put the data loss back in when legions of irate developers complained about its removal?



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