Firewire issues after Snow Leopard...

Hi, I buy a 1tb freecom had drive with fw400 interface, first use of fw port on my macbook pro 3,1 (santa rosa, late2007) with snow leopard 10.6.1 and surprise dont't work

when plugged first time all ok: the drive appear on desktop
try to partition with utility disk and start the infinity error
try to partition by terminal with sudo privileges and don't work
try to partition from installation dvd of snow leopard don't work

at the end I have partitioned the drive from installation of macos leopard and succesfull, now when start my mac normally with snow leopard the drive appear in the desktop but...

start time machine backup an stall around 300mb always!!! idem of copying files
if I bootcamp the drive works on windows normally

tryed reset smc, reset nvram/pram, chenge the file in system/library/exstension whithout successful

other fix? or I have to wit untill apple recognizes the bug?

thank you and sorry for my bad english

This isn't a MacBook forum though... probably more appropriate to look in MBP and TimeMachine Snow Leopard areas.

ops, sorry but I found the topic directly from google and don't see the section

10.6.2 did nothing to improve my situation either, dashing my hopes of a fix.

FireWire devices seem to work (sometimes) if just a single device is directly attached to the Mac. With hubs or daisy-chained devices, forget it--nothing works.

Hello everyone,

After installing the 10.6.2 update last night on my 10.6.1 system with 10.5.6 firewire kext files, my firewire port wasn't recognized anymore in system profiler !
I did a time machine restore, replaced the leopard kext files again by the snow leopard ones, applied the 10.6.2 combo update and no luck, copying to the drives was still slow as always (2 mb/s).
Reinstalling snow leopard from scratch after smc and nvram/pram reset, without time machine backup restore, followed by the combo update, didn't help either.
Since working with the 10.5.6 kexts causes problems with my firewire audio interface, as described by another user, and knowing that I can't properly update my system, I've decided to switch back to leopard for the time being.
I've contacted the dutch 2nd line apple support to report this ongoing issue.

As many persons are complaining about this issue, I would like to know who has already contacted apple support and if any cases were opened, because I doubt any reaction from engineering, if you don't ? (You can eventually mail me as much information as possible, so that I can send it to my apple 2nd line contact in the Netherlands.)

Amaury

Just a nightly thought ... These firewire problems with Oxford chipsets aren't new. I've found a rather interesting web page while googling: http://www.index-site.com/firewirebug2.html#FIRMWARE. Maybe our drives just need firmware updating ...

In order to find a solution, I've contacted Freecom last night, the manufacturer of my "slow Snow Leopard" drives and I received a reply this morning:

Dear Customer,

this is a known problem, our developement team is working on a solution. When it’s finished, we will publish it on our website / forum.


Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Kind regards,
Freecom Technologies GmbH

Daniel Bleichroth
Customer Support

...

Sent: Mittwoch, 11. November 2009 03:18
To: Freecom Support UK
Subject: Freecom firewire 1 TB drives very slow in Snow Leopard
Importance: High

Dear Sir,
Dear Madam,

I've bought two external 1TB firewire (400 only) drives a year ago and they always worked flawlessly with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
Strangely enough I can still copy files from my external hard disk to my Snow Leopard ( Mac OS X 10.6) volume at high firewire transfer rates, but not the other way around, because copying from my SL volume to my external drive becomes very slow at 2 MB/s.
The only workaround I've found so far is to install the old Leopard firewire kext files (= drivers) in Snow Leopard, but this isn't an ideal solution.
Since the Apple telephone support can't really help me, I hope that you have a solution for me !
Please find my problem description on the following Apple support thread (messages from Mac Mini 2008, signed by Amaury or Beliarus): http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2136580.

...

I have two 1.5TB Mybook drives on firewire. Same problem as everyone else, only 2MB/s transfer speed. I have tried them both on my iMac and my Macbook Pro. Speed typically starts out faster at around 16-20 MB/s then after about a gig drops to 2MB/s. Have also tried putting one on USB and the other on firewire. Even slower results. Upgrading to 10.6.2 on both machines made no difference.

Another Freecom support answer:

Hi,


The fault could be with both,
We currently testing if a update from our side would solve the problem.

Kind regards,
Freecom Technologies GmbH

Technical Support
P : 01423 581020
E : supportuk@freecom.com
W: http://www.freecom.com

...

Sent: 11 November 2009 19:28
To: Freecom Support UK
Subject: Re: Freecom firewire 1 TB drives very slow in Snow Leopard

Dear Daniel,

Would it be possible to tell me where the problem is: Snow Leopard kext file (= driver) or firmware Freecom drive ?

...

For what it is worth, in addition to my two brand new, non-functional 1.5TB MyBook's I have two 500GB Maxtors on the same firewire daisy chain that are working just fine. This leads me to believe that there is an issue (in my case) with an incompatibility with these specific drives. I have replaced kexts, restarted, repaired drives, reinstalled Snow Leopard, reset my iMac etc, etc with no luck at all. Meanwhile the Maxtors are cruising along at 30mb/sec. I am going to try and return both of my 1.5TB MyBooks and get some more Maxtors. The firmware for the Mybooks fails to run on my system and gives me an error. The turbo drivers for mac off the MyBook webpage site made no difference either. I've spent hours on this. I'm done.

I replaced the two black firewire cables that came with the hard drives and everything seems to be working now. Wow.

When I UG to 10.6 my external Freecom 1.0Tb (FW400) drive it just went slow but my 500Gb LaCie FW800 worked OK. I replaced the ketch files from 10.5.8 and the 1.0Tb drive started to work normally. Now with 10.6.2 both drive do not even show up and I had to replace the files again. I just spent 30 mins on the phone to apple and they said they will call me back new week with what they manage to find out. The L1 & L2 technicians say they are not aware of the problem. so I kept telling them to google and they would see loads of people with the same problem.

I hope they get a move on

@skucep

you should read my posts, since i have exactly the same Freecom problem and i have already contacted apple support, who asked me to wait for a freecom update. freecom support told me that they know the problem and that they are working on a solution. you can tell apple uk support that there is already a similar case at the dutch L2 support with number 136431075.