external firewire drives won't mount

Question

external firewire drives won't mount

forgive me if this is a common question, i did do a search and found some similar questions, but none that were providing a good solution...

I have had 2 Western digital Mybook studio 1TB external drives connected by daisy chain to one another via firewire 800 for a long time and it was working fine until today....now suddenly neither of the drives can mount/be recognized by my Imac 2.8 Ghz Intel core 2 duo 24" running OSX 10.5.8. I have tried firewire 400 and 800 on both drives, tried disconnecting everything, restarting/rebooting, resetting PRAM, verify disk, repair permissions, different cords....nothing works. USB portable drive is still recognized fine---must be a firewire thing? Any advice appreciated and welcomed, I am at my wits end as these drives contain my last 3 years of photography and design work and i now can't access anything. HELP!

thanks in advance for any help,
kate

imac g5 24" 2.8ghz intel core 2 duo/macbook pro 15", Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Mar 26, 2010 12:23 AM

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Answer 1

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,346 points

Mar 26, 2010 7:28 AM in response to terror twilight

Kate,

Try doing a SMC reset. Please follow the instructions closely as they vary for different Mac models.

Please let us know if that helps.

Regards,

Roger

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Answer 2

Rick Lang

Level 4

1,236 points

Mar 26, 2010 8:56 PM in response to terror twilight

Hopefully you have had success and the drives are back online. You did not mention if you had tried to mount each of the drives individually, i.e. nothing else connected to the computer except one of the Firewire drives... and then disconnect and try the other Firewire drive. This would help determine if the first drive's logic board developed a problem with Firewire so the secondary drive on the chain is helpless if the first drive has a logic fault.

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Answer 3

Mar 28, 2010 7:39 PM in response to terror twilight

The WD MYBook drives seem to be a little erratic about mounting with a FW connection. I was able to get my connections working better by powering off everything, disconnecting all the external drives, and then removing the power cord from the iMac and let it sit disconnected for about 15 minutes. That seems to help "reset" the interfaces. It's easy to try and might help.

Good luck.

David

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Answer 4

Apr 22, 2010 10:21 AM in response to terror twilight

is there command in terminal or xcode to reset the firewire bus besause i have the same problem and resetting pram and smc yeilded no results d-booting hardware test said everything was fine.

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Answer 5

Apr 28, 2010 8:03 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Just wanted to say thanks. This worked great for me tonight with an Intel iMac with the same problem.

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Answer 6

Apr 29, 2010 3:13 PM in response to mairwatching

mairwatching wrote:
Just wanted to say thanks. This worked great for me tonight with an Intel iMac with the same problem.

Excuse me

but what exactly did you select to do from the plethora of suggestions to make it work ?

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Answer 7

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,346 points

Apr 30, 2010 7:06 AM in response to mac midiguy

Mac midiguy,

Take a look at this CNET article it will show you how to trouble shoot this problem.

Regards,

Roger

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Answer 8

Apr 30, 2010 10:06 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Thanks Roger.

Unfortunately the problem i had is not covered although that article provides excellent information.

The problem was a firewire drive that got "locked" by some strange computer voodoo.

In the end an local Apple tech guy suggested: " just erase and install a fresh copy".

And that so called archival installation in Snow Leopard failed which still leaves me to believe there is no such thing in the SL installer despite what it says in the printed manual that came with my iMac i bought in Nov/Dec 2009. After a successful installation i deliberately moved some folders and Apple applications before running the installer. I ended up with a fresh install and the folders and apps i moved were gone.

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Answer 9

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,346 points

Apr 30, 2010 10:15 AM in response to mac midiguy

Your welcome.

I'm not sure what you're trying to do but it sounds like you are creating a mess. The information in Apple's printed manual is accurate though. If you are still having issues then I would recommend contacting Apple Care and getting them sorted out. Your machine is under warranty but they free phone support has expired unless you have purchased Apple Care. If you have not purchased Apple Care I would strongly suggest you do so before your 1 year warranty has expired. BTW the contact information in Canada is:

Canada (English) 1-800-263-3394 www.apple.com/ca/support/
(French) 1-800-263-3394 www.apple.com/ca/fr/support/

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Answer 10

Apr 30, 2010 1:07 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Thanks for the info and sticking with my question.

I do have the Apple Care etc etc BUT Apple Care simply walked away from the problem because they said that the problem is with the FW drive which is not their responsibility and further more as far as they were concerned the iMac was not the problem.

Yes, but but but...click they hung up. And believe me folks i did not curse or anything like that. So for me it's called Apple iDon't Care.

That's when i visited a local Mac dealership and talked to the tech who told me to erase the drives and re-install. He said there was no provision in the warranty to do anything except re-install because it was a FW drive problem and nothing to do with the 800 ports on the iMac.

So it was they win i lose. But not to worry i will continue to buy and stick with macs.

As they say, c'est la vie.

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Answer 11

Jun 8, 2010 10:18 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Thanks for the tip, Unplugging the power cord for about 10 minutes works well for me, but now its happening every other day, any suggestions on why this is happening? How can I fix this?

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