Lacie Drive Won't Mount

Hello World,

My Lacie porsche drive 160 gb won't mount! it stopped mounting after i turned it off before it had been properly ejected from the computer. i don't normally turn it off w/out properly ejecting...i've only accidentally done it a few times. otherwise my drive has been working fine, between my G5 home computer and the G5s at school. I reformatted my drive earlier this year to be OS JOURNALED EXTENDED which I was told to do by our lab tech. my drive is about 1.5 years old.

i can't even see my drive in disk utility. i tried using data rescue but because the computer can't recognize it all, its not included on the list in data rescue to rescue the files.

i have tried using a power cord and firewire from another lacie porsche drive but no mount. also have tried switching between the two firewire ports on the drive and no luck there either.

I have a FCP project on there which I haven't backed up anywhere else which I need by Wednesday to submit for a MFA school showcase (of course...perfect timing!)

any help suggestions would be most appreciated!
thank you!

Try DiskWarrior. It can sometimes see drives that Disk Utilities can't. You may have to launch DiskWarrior and then turn on the drive. However, you only have about even odds of that working.

Lacies are notorious for frying easily. Don't use them.


www.derekmok.com

I have have about 6 firewire drives lying around and they´ve all acted up at some point.

Not letting themselves mount. Have thankfully not lost a drive to date, knock wood.

And yes I have a Lacie which gets slammed on this forum all the time.

It´s one of those Big disk Extreme triple Interface things!

It recently wouln´t mount using firewire 800.

I tried numerous restarts and vainly attempted to mount the thing with disk utilities.

What worked for me in the end was simply connecting it via firewire 400 or USB.

Can´t remember which.

I repaired the permissions, although they apparently didn´t need repairing!

Perhaps this was a coincidence but afterwards I connected via Firewire 800 and things worked.

Maybe aleighlewis has more than one interface! e.g. USB and Firewire400?

I quite like my triple interface and the Lacie box although ugly it is very robust and not sooooo loud.

Have also read in the internet that the bridge set is the problem with Lacie?

Is it not possible to replace this and keep the rest?

Needless to say the guarantee would be void. But that´s a minor detail!

I don´t think that I could bring myself to literally throw the hard drive out!

thanks

paurray

dear paurray,
thanks for this message.

i unfortunately only have two firewire 400 ports on my drive, no 800.

what do you mean that the 'bridge set' is the problem with Lacie? is that something related to the casing and not the drive itself?

have you heard that its possible to take the drive out of the enclosure and install in your computer like an internal drive?

thanks so much for your response,

aleigh

I tried turning on disk warrior and then plugging in my drive. no go. still won't recognize it. thanks for the tip.

aleigh

that lacie porsche drive is just about the worst piece of dung ever. i had two that messed up both a year of client work and a good bit of my itunes music collection. both problems ive discuvered are un-repairable

throw the drive out the window, chalk it up to expereience, and never buy a lacie product again

Turn off your Mac. Wait 15 minutes. Plug drive back in. Turn Mac on. See if that works. If it doesnt, contact LaCie.

Michael Horton
-------------------

Yes you could also take the HDD out of the case and try putting it in the Mac directly or in another case. This will work if it is the bridge board (interface) that has broken.

Also try cooling the drive down - get a fan blowing cold air over it then try to mount it in an hour or so... most of the HDDs issues with Lacie are caused but over heating.

Last resort - either put the HDD in the fridge (covered in tissue paper and newspaper to absorb moisture) and then try it really cold

or take it to a data recovery company who will charge you many thousands to recover your data.

Then throw it away and get a non-lacie non-maxtor HDD.


Ben



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

HI Ben,

Thanks for the tip.

My drive looks pretty sealed. how do I open it up? how do i pry it open w/out damaging the drive inside?

if it still doesn't work inside the mac, is it worth it to try a new enclosure or its a lost cause? i just need to get my stuff off and then buy a new drive!

thanks, aleigh

<<<the 'bridge set' is the problem with Lacie?>>>

That's the electronics package between the FireWire cable and the spinning platters inside the cabinet. It's the traffic cop and data manager. FireWire will handle many drives on one string of cables at the same time (not that it's the recommended way to go for video) and something has to know when to talk and when to listen.

It can get confused or in some cases outright fail. I make it a point to buy external drives that have USB and FireWire connections in back. They tend not to fail at the same time.

If it is the chipset that has failed (and it's really likely) then you can remove the drive itself from the cabinet and put it in another cabinet and keep going. Frys Electronics, for example, has a selection of empty cabinets to buy that can do this.

Koz

Just be aware that if you open up the drive yourself, you void your warranty and Lacie won't replace your drive.


www.derekmok.com

well, lacies customer service in my experience is schooled to try to pass the buck anyway...

if its simply a matter of mounting, slapping it in another brand case or directly into you mac should be fine. and in fact the drive mechanism may be fine to leave in your mac as a second drive.

however, if your situation is like mine was, there may be non-recoverable file damage as well. all you can do is break the drive out and see.

i dont see what damage would be caused by prying the case open with a screwdriver... now a band saw - thats a different discussion!

I just did some research and I don't think that I can install the LACIE drive into my computer because it says that the drive has to be 3.9 inches and the Lacie drive is 3.5. also I have already installed 2 internal drives and have reached my max. I was trying to avoid buying the enclosure, bc after I get my data off, I will throw my drive away!

-aleigh

dont throw the drive mechanism itself away, it may be fine. just bust out a good flathead screwdriver, pry off the case (i just looked at mine, i'll bet it comes off in a snap or two) go to your local computer store. find any empty fw enclosure that has the oxford 911 or 912 - usually says on the box. (and a fan if possible) and you'll have a fully functional new external drive.

im gambling that since its just a mounting issue (as long as you can hear teh drive spinning up on power up) that a new enclosure will make everything pretty!

Well I very much like my non-Porsche Design LaCie's, they're the non-fanned D2 block design, very clean, quiet and heat has never been an issue-- I use two to three at a time for full days, now having moved up to 800. I own a dozen and stack them vertically in their slider plates on the shelf. I do like that.

I wouldn't use them for anything but DV/DVCAM. I wouldn't use the USB interface, I understand it's a packet-driven protocol which fights streaming data such as audio and video.

One thing I will do, however, on my older G4 (QuickSilver Dual 800) is plug these into dedicated FireWire 800 cards and leave the tower bus free for the deck. That has helped an awful lot. Sonnet makes one and so do several other manufacturers. This stuff behaves even better on newer towers.

And hopefully there are no Maxtor's in there; prefrably Seagate or Western Digital. But that's me. Some people love Maxtor... this means they're getting what they paid for and that's excellent.

And DON'T daisy-chain your drives, plug each one into the card.

Have DiskWarrior handy for maintenance and occasional emergency directory rebuilds.

- Loren
Today's FCP 4 / 5 keytip:
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www.neotrondesign.com

Dear Everyone who contributed their insights.

I went to staples and bought a USB enclosure (i hadn't read that other email before i bought it).

IT WORKED!!!! My drive is back!!!! I am going to buy a new drive anyways and chuck my Lacie.

Thank you thank you!
Cheers, aleigh

<<<find any empty fw enclosure that has the oxford 911 or 912 - usually says on the box. (and a fan if possible)>>>

I don't think you can buy a forced-air cabinet any more. I looked. There are two ways to go when you don't find one; The Seagate way or Everybody Else. If you buy a self-contained Seagate drive, you will find on close examination that all those decorations are really vent holes and no matter how you hold the cabinet, there is always a series of holes on the bottom and one on the top. Excellent design. I think I'm up to four.

They are the same size and shape as a Mini, by the way. You can go with the 250G drive that matches the paint job, or you can go with the Seagate and get 750G.

Anyway the other way to go is a sealed case and a lot of advertising copy about how safe it is.

I have some experience with this. I bought an aluminum sealed case. They play the odds. If you do data work like most people do--sporadically, even with video and audio work--then everything should be OK. The drive never runs long enough to overheat.

That's not what I did. I wanted to image an entire second drive and that meant both drives ran constantly for four hours. I finally aborted the transfer after a couple of hours when I couldn't put my hand on top of the case without burning it. Remember the drive is inside the case cooking. I took the case apart and finished the transfer in open air and then I bought a fan and ventilated the case.

I will never buy another sealed case.

They look zippy and give you a nice competent feeling--until you have to rescue your data because the drive will no longer respond. We're still holding the rescue data from one of the Network Supervisors when his sealed Lacie boiled.

Koz

<<<I am going to buy a new drive anyways and chuck my Lacie. >>>

I probably wouldn't do that, either. Working on the assumption that the actual little metal drive is probably OK, you have just bought the parts for your backup drive. Backup drives do not have serious speed requirements, so USB could work OK.

Anything valuable should live on two different spinning platters. Others will go for CD or DVD or (forgive me) streaming tape backup, but you still can't beat the speed and convenience of backing up to another hard drive.

Koz

be sure to check those files aleigh, just because they are there doesnt mean they havent gone all wonky.

i had a number of photoshop files go south on my porsche design drive - even though they appeared to be there, they wouldnt open or opened with visible errors

> be sure to check those files aleigh, just because they are there doesnt mean they havent
> gone all wonky.

That is prudent, but before you even do that, you should copy all files to another drive as a backup.


www.derekmok.com

It turns out that something is busted w/ the firewire connection in my drive. when i bought a new enclosure, and connect via firewire my drive won't show up. But when I connect via USB it will show up. It runs so painfully slow though!

needless to say i am buying a new drive and wondered what people thought was a better deal.

otherworld computing has a MECURY ELITE-AL DRIVE, 250 GB, 16MB CACHE, 800/400 Firewire for $144. The only drawback is that it uses a Maxtor harddrive but gives 2 year warranty and Maxtor/Seagate gives a 3 year warranty. People have been saying that Maxtor is evil like Lacie. Does the warranty make a difference?

The other drive is G-TECH which is 250 GB, 8 MB CACHE, 800/400 Firewire for $199. They use a Hitachi drive, with 2 year warranty. The only drawback with this one is the price increase and less CACHE.

Suggestions?

Thanks, aleigh

OWC gets good reviews on here; Maxtors don't. I haven't owned an OWC, but in all my time in here I haven't heard a report of one dying without cause. But Hitachi drives are definitely better than Maxtors; for a $50 difference, I'd usually go with the G-Tech. There were reports of later batches of G-Tech drives acting up, though.

To be honest, I don't find warranties much of a factor when it comes to drives. Sure, you'll get a replacement, but who's going to replace the files you lose if a drive dies? It tends to be that the files are worth more than the drive.


www.derekmok.com

New to this forum and specifically looking for LaCie drive problems. So far this is the most cogent and down-to-earth discussion about this problem that I have found.
My Big Disk Extreme Triple (8 months old), all of a sudden stopped recognizing the USB connection. I use the FW800 but needed to verify the USB because of my intent to use this with my new Apple Airport Extreme Base Station as a "network" drive. None of the USB slots in my Macbookpro would work. However, it did mount with a pc-HP Laptop. I brought the drive and macbook to Apple store. It mounted on their unit, slowly. They took the laptop and were going to change all of the logic boards (2) to get new USB ports. I bought an iMac the same day. Went home..set it up...plugged in LaCie drive....no USB recognition. I called Apple and didn't let them do anything to the macbook. Called LaCie. Sent the unit back to them. They sent it back that it worked just fine with their G4 and mini. Tried again...did firmware updates, etc. Didn't work. Called LaCie again and sent it back again. They tried it with a macbookpro...and it "worked". They returned it to me. While the USB connection does not mount, the drive does show up in System Profiler-not Disk Utility. Also, when an update of firmware is done, the drive is not found when attached via USB. Finally got LaCie to send me a "new" recon drive. Guess what? It works...for now. This is proof that something is wrong with their drives and not the physical computer or Mac OSX (4.9). I sent screen shots of the system profiler for 2 computers to them; copies of blogs from forums about this problem; and they "acted" as though this was a NEW ISSUE FOR THEM. While they stand behind their warranty, I am more than concerned that this or other LaCie drives will not hold up for full functionality. Even though my FW connections always worked, who wants to invest in something where the writing is already on the wall? The fact that one of you was able to remove the disk and install it in a 3rd party housing to get it to work, further supports the fact that LaCie is not owning up to an inherent problem with their drive interface(s). Now this may be a small percentage of their total drive business, but some of us seem to be the ones affected.
Has anyone had any experience with Newertech's MiniStack V2? Only USB and FW400.
[www.newertech.com]
I would like to find a similar drive with FW800 and USB. Any suggestions?
My conclusion with LaCie is to take what they give me. Purchase another, more reliable, drive, and use the new drive as a parallel backup until the LaCie goes down, as I expect.
I hope that this long post is worthwhile.