LaCie External Hard Drive not working properly...

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Level 1

56 points

LaCie External Hard Drive not working properly...

Hi,
I have a 250G lacie hard drive that I have had for about 3 years now. Recently it has started playing up.

Initally it sounded like the hard drive was just disconnecting, I would be working away and there would be a click and whirl noise, followed by the warning saying my hard drive had been unplugged properly. Then it would start making sounds like it was trying to connect again.

Now sometimes when I plug it in, nothing happens. I hear the whining of the drive starting....sometimes after a while, or after making the dropping sound and then the whirring sound it'll show up on the desk top after a while, other times it never does.

So initially when it wasn't showing up I would unplug it (causing th warning screen to pop up) so I've stopped that now. I have tried unplugging it at the wall, using different cables and using different ports, but still no change.

The thing that got me is that if I look in disk utility it'll show up in there. Is there any way of opening and accessing the disc from there? or is there a way of making it show up since it's in disk utility?

It's quite frustrating. I work with video and use the external drive to hold the video files. I have backed up the drive, but I'd like to continue using it? Or do these drives have a short shelf life? If so, might be time I made use of the Sales of Good Act!

I hope someone can help me with this,
Many thanks,
Martin.

G4 1.25GHz 15.2, Mac OS X (10.3.x), LaCie 250G HDD.

Posted on Jan 4, 2008 6:34 AM

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Answer 1

louie

Level 4

2,950 points

Jan 4, 2008 10:32 AM in response to Martin Banks

The first thing I would try is another power supply. LaCie's seem to have a history of failing power supplies with external drives. I think they sell them on their website for $20. A failing power supply might provide enough power to run the interface in the enclosure, but not enough to run the HD mechanism properly.

You may also have a failing hard drive mechanism. It will be hard to diagnose without a known good enclosure and power supply.

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Answer 2

DonH49

Level 6

16,704 points

Jan 8, 2008 6:22 AM in response to Martin Banks

reset your Mac and the firewire drive, improperly un-mounting caused your problem.

1. Shut-down your Mac, and unplug the power cord
2. Turn the power off on your external FireWire devices
3. Unplug the FireWire devices from the Mac
4. Wait for 5 min.
5. Plug the power cord to your Mac only
6. Restart the Mac while holding the Option-Apple-O-F, and keep holding until you get the ">" prompt, then release the keys
7. At the ">" prompt type:
reset-nvram and hit the Return key
set-defaults and hit the Return key
reset-all and hit the Return key
the last command will restart your mac
8. Shut down your Mac
9. Connect all your FireWire devices to the Mac and turn them on
10. Restart your Mac.

All your FireWire devices should reapear, if not repeat the procedure

How to avoid the issue :
The only really proven way to avoid burning up a FireWire port is to connect all devices and to turn them on PRIOR turning on the Mac. Likely, one must unplug them and turn them off AFTER the Mac has been turned off. If you need to connect another device, then you're on for a shutdown of your machine...  It's a tad annoying but it guarantees that the FW ports won't be damaged.  Be careful when using self powered devices such as webcams, iPods, hard drives or hubs, as they can destroy the port pretty easily. Another thing is to avoid daisy-chaining hard drives.

When the FW port doesn't respond anymore :
In this case, peripherals won't be mounted upon plugging, and won't be displayed in Apple's System Profiler. The self powered devices will still be fed by the port, but won't respond either.  It happens that the PHY just hangs after a surge or a random problem. Once hung, the port will not respond any longer, it is possible to reset the component by going through the following steps :
1° boot the mac in Open Firmware by holding [ Apple key - Option - O - F ] after the startup chime.  2° you'll get to a command prompt. the keyboard mapping will be QWERTY, so pay attention when you type the following :  RESET-NVRAM (enter)  RESET-ALL (enter)  3° Now the mac should restart itself and the port should function properly again.  If it still doesn't work, then it means that the PHY is damaged.

http://www.hardmac.com/articles/16/

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