Help Please - Lacie Drive No Longer Will Appear On Desktop

Hi. I started a new project today and after capturing one 20 minute segment
to my hard drive, everthing started acting wierd - Log and Capture window
read no time code or control track from the tape so I had to use Capture Now.
Then, when I disconnected camera and connected Miglia Converter to edit with canvas as NTSC Monitor all firewire activity ceased, including the ability to recognize Lacie Drive or any other firewire device even after multiple resets, etc. Now my Mac tells me: "Firewire storage device specify - not loaded, Valid: Yes" Can corrupted preference FCP files do this? (Dual 2 GHz G5
Version 10.3.9, FCP 4.5)

Have you tried plugging the drive in to the port at the front of the machine (or back of the machine if it was originally plugged in to the front)?
Have you tried another firewire cable?
Does the drive work on another machine?

Try to narrow down which parts of the chain are working, so that you can figure out which parts are not working.

Also, try blowing the dust out of your firewire port. This can sometimes cause connection problems when swapping things in and out.

> "Firewire storage device specify - not loaded, Valid: Yes" Can corrupted
> preference FCP files do this?

It smells like a computer problem to me -- I've had drives refuse to mount, but FCP tends to simply roll along. Anybody ever seen this message? And since your deck is also acting funny, I think Jude's diagnosis seems correct. Just to be sure, try quitting FCP and then mounting the drive, then use System Profiler, Norton Disk Doctor and DiskWarrior and see if any of them recognize the drive.

If not, try mounting the drive on another machine and be sure to check its formatting. It's possible that the FireWire (port?) malfunction was caused by the drive.

Jude,
I did change it's connection from the back to the front and it worked fine
for a few minutes, so I then tried to connect my other firewire device
(Miglia Converter) on the back and got a little spark from the computer
to the firewire connection and now no firewire works at all. Spark doesn't
sound too cool, does it.
I'll try test out my firewire cables and Lacie drive today at work.
Thanks.

Derek,
System Profiler doesn't see the drive either, as for Disk Doctor and
Disk Warrior - I have neither. Are these utilities I should purchase?
And can I get away with buying only one of them?

Spark!?

Sounds like you should leave your Miglia Converter off for awhile, see if the drive runs fast on its own. You need to reduce the number of variables in the equation. The process you went through suggests that your converter is frying your FireWire port.

> Disk Doctor and Disk Warrior - I have neither. Are these utilities I should
> purchase? And can I get away with buying only one of them?

Yes. Not having any utility programs is a risky proposition. Norton has a nickname bestowed by my first Final Cut Pro teacher -- "Norton Futilities" -- but it's better to have it than not. DiskWarrior, on the other hand, is indispensable
if you're going to be using external FireWire drives; it fixes the drive's directory (which is highly vulnerable on FireWire drives) and is often able to "see" a drive that's invisible to the rest of the system. I've long held the belief that my own drives have had a long healthy life (the oldest one is five years old) because of my DiskWarrior and reformatting routines.

Derek,
Thanks for your quick reply. Now I have a plan... I'll make sure
Lacie drive and Firwire cable work properly, get DiscWarrior,
and move the Miglia to another room entirely. And go from there.

I don't know how much of an animal you are, but our servicing people have had more than one person come in with smoking ruin after a client had managed to push a FireWire cable in backwards.

The 6-pin FireWire cable has power on two of the little gold pins and putting those gold pins in the wrong place, either by reversing the cable or putting it in crooked, will cause very, very serious problems.

It is the house policy to never change FireWire connections with the equipment running.

Koz

Ray,

Did you have a brownout or blackout recently? Humor me...Try unplugging your Computer from the wall, you FW drive from the computer and also from the wall for 10 minutes - no more, no less.

The FW bus fuses reset themselves and my LaCie came back after I did this.

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Ack. Sparks! Don't like the sound of that. Did you get it sorted yet Ray?

Hey Jude (please forgive - I couldn't resist),
I don't have it sorted out yet, but both Greg K and grafixjoe (above) have
each rung a bell. A few days ago I did have to turn off the main
house electric breaker to pull out a broken prong from an electric
socket in my bedroom. And the next day is when I tried fitting a
6 pin firewire cable into a 9 pin hole (both being labeled just with
the firewire sign on the back of my G5 and me not knowing anything
about firewire 800.) That's when I got the spark. I'll try unplugging my
computer from the wall for exactly 10 minutes - my Lacie drive has been
disconnected now for 24 hours, and see what that gets me. I also have obtained a copy of disk warrior on CD and will intall that, but I don't think it will
help me until I can see the Lacie drive somewhere.
Thank you all for your interest ... it makes me feel just a little bit less
stupid.