Unable to mount Lacie d2 Quadra (500Gb) using FW 800

Hello

I've just bought a Lacie d2 500Gb Quadra external harddrive to use for Time Machine on Leopard with my MBP.

The manual indicates it is formatted for Mac OS X Extended out the box. So I hooked it up to my MacBook Pro using the F/W 800 cable but when I powered on my Mac, it just asked to Initialise the drive.

So I chose initialize and then tried to create a single partition using GUID and Mac OS X Extended (Journaled). However it just seemed to stall at "Creating Partition Map".. approx 2% complete but no more.

After about 30 mins, I power-cycled the drive and tried the Erase Option instead, again choosing Mac OS X Extended (Journaled). However despite selecting this, it always reverted to FAT (or FAT32) and I was unable to mount the drive.

In the end I shut down both the Mac and drive and connected it via F/W 400 instead. Magically everything is fine, it remembered my drive format and name and TimeMachine backs up fine to it.

However if I try going back to F/W 800, it just asks to Initialize the disk again.

I've checked the firmware and it appears up to date (only bought the drive today) so I'm a bit stuck. I really want to use it with F/W 800 and this was one of the main reasons for buying this type of drive.

Am I missing something simple or stupid here.. like duff cable, directional cable etc.. wrong F/W port on drive (there are 2 - tried them both).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
James

MacBook Pro 17" 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.5), 2Gb RAM, 200Gb internal hard-drive

Posted on Oct 30, 2007 2:33 PM

39 replies

Nov 11, 2007 9:03 AM in response to CGiannetto

Just to set the record straight (and give thanks to Cyril for the pointer), I did indeed have the EFI firmware password set on my MBP (not sure what I was thinking when I responded earlier). After removing the password, the partitions on the d2 Quadra are recognized when connected via FW800 and booted into Leopard. Again, booting into Tiger worked with or without an EFI firmware set and EFI itself can see the drive so it's some interaction between EFI, the FW drivers in Leopard and/or the firmware on the d2 Quadra that appear to be at fault here.

Hoping for a true solution but I can live without the EFI password for the time being.

Thanks to all for the help!

Message was edited by: CGiannetto

Nov 12, 2007 4:16 AM in response to CGiannetto

CGiannetto wrote:
Again, booting into Tiger worked with or without an EFI firmware set and EFI itself can see the drive so it's some interaction between EFI, the FW drivers in Leopard and/or the firmware on the d2 Quadra that appear to be at fault here.

I just wanted to point out that in our case, the problem with FW800 happened in BOTH Tiger and Leopard. Removing firmware password cleared the problem in the case of Leopard (don't know for Tiger, but assume it probably would).

Nov 12, 2007 1:05 PM in response to James Shoebottom

Hello All

Thanks for all your help. I too had the EFI Firmware password set and once I removed it, I too can mount the drive using FW800 under Leopard, and to concur with Charlie, having the EFI Firmware password set under Tiger didn't cause this conflict.

Cyril - many thanks for the heads up - I would never have guessed that 🙂

so I'm up and running now - although I still wish I had that added level of password security especially for a laptop.

James

Nov 12, 2007 1:36 PM in response to Ian Hobson1

Ian,

I only tried Tiger with the original install DVD that came with my MBP. I did not try later versions of Tiger. It's quite possible that an update to the FW drivers occurred somewhere along the road to the latest/last release of Tiger, which caused this issue with the d2 Quadra and that these drivers were carried along to Leopard.

In any event, I've made LaCie aware of the situation and hopefully they can figure out what's going on.

- Charlie

erikb

Level 1

1 points

Nov 14, 2007 1:44 PM in response to CGiannetto

thanks Cyril, solved my problem too!

GapNg

Level 1

0 points

Nov 15, 2007 12:44 AM in response to CGiannetto

Hi,

I have Lacie D2 Quadra and Lacie D2 extreme HDs. Both of them can not connect to my new iMac 20" after upgrading to 10.5. I have tried many methods but none of them were succeed until reading this forum. But I am new to Apple OS. I do not know how to disable the EFI firmware password. What is this and how to disable. Pls help.

Derek

GapNg

Level 1

0 points

Nov 15, 2007 1:12 AM in response to James Shoebottom

Hi James,

Can you tell me how to disable the EFI password. I have tried by using the upgrade disc of 10.5 - firmware password function to enter blank. Is this the way? I am new to Apple OS. Thanks for your help.

Derek

Nov 15, 2007 4:42 AM in response to GapNg

Just uncheck the box that says "Require password to change firmware settings" and click the ok button (you will no doubt need an administrator password to do this).

GapNg

Level 1

0 points

Nov 16, 2007 6:29 PM in response to CGiannetto

CGiannetto,
Thanks for your reply. I have tried by loading the 10.5 upgrade disc and perform the Firmware Password Utility. I did the procedure as what you have told. After reset, I still unable to see the D2 Quadra. I have already upgrade the firmware to 10.5.1.

Thanks

Derek

Nov 24, 2007 11:17 AM in response to GapNg

I just brought out of storage my two Lacie D2 drives (250GB and 300GB)--I think these are referred to as triple drives as they have USB 2.0, Firewire 400 and 800. I have not used them since upgrading to Leopard. I too am having problems mounting the drives under Firewire 800--neither drive will mount either directly to my Quad or 30" Cinema, but under firewire no problem.

I looked in System profiler and get the "Unable to list FireWire devices." I am running 10.5.1.

Any ideas what to do? (USB is too slow). I do not see any updates on Lacie website.

Nov 24, 2007 11:36 AM in response to James Coley

As a further update the drives are both recognized on my MBP 15" and iMac 20".

Dec 2, 2007 9:12 AM in response to James Coley

Hi All

I too am having multiple problems with Lacie drives. So far six have caused problems. Three of which will not mount at all. Sometimes the others mount and some times they don't. Tried all the suggested options. Managing to get most of the stuff backed up.

They show up in system profiler but not on the desk top. Have gone to other computers running 10.4 and four normally mount but the three "important" ones won't.

No discernible pattern or reason. Hope someone finds a solution soon.

Dec 3, 2007 7:09 AM in response to Bill William

Did you try resetting the PRAM? This worked for me (and I could see the devices on Apple PRofiler Before resetting the PRAM too.)

Dec 3, 2007 8:58 AM in response to James Coley

Yes, I tried resetting the PRAM. Nothing different.

Another quirk. One of the 320 GB Lacie drives would not mount on either FW 400 or FW800 on the MacBook Pro. On the Mac Pro it would not mount on the FW800 directly or daisy chained but... it did mount directly on the FW400.

No understanding of why.

Dec 3, 2007 10:53 AM in response to Bill William

I was lucky as I also had a USB port and was able to connect through this.

GL.

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Unable to mount Lacie d2 Quadra (500Gb) using FW 800