Initio Chipset driver? Acomdata Ex HD disappears on IOGear combo PCI card

Question

Level 1

0 points

Initio Chipset driver? Acomdata Ex HD disappears on IOGear combo PCI card

Hi,
Just got an IOGear FireWire (400)/USB2.0 PCI card. Checked first to make sure they use the same chipset my Mac likes and it seems to be working just fine. Scanner, camera, and printer are all happy on the ports.
I got an Acomdata HD that has an Initio chipset. It mounts just fine on my built-in ports, both FireWire and USB but won't show up on the PCI card ports. I have called both vendors tech lines without much resolve beyond Acomdata telling me to buy a different brand PCI card and IOGear sugesting I should return this card and try again, just in case it's faulty. I may go ahead and return it but it seems to work fine. I did get a bad card initially, returned it and this is the replacement!
I searched the web and finally found there is a known problem with OSX 10.3.9 and the Initio chipset provided by Acomdata (no thanks to the tech there!) and found some sort of driver I can install from the Initio web site.
But before I go introducing a third party driver, I thought I'd see if anyone has experienced this problem and installed the Initio driver with any success. Or perhaps there's a Mac driver update that addresses the problem. Or do you think the problem is more likely in the PCI card?

Quicksilver(2002) Dual G4 1 GHz Mac OS X (10.3.9) 1.5G mem nVIDIA GeForce4 MX

Posted on Dec 16, 2006 6:10 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Jeff

Level 6

12,328 points

Dec 16, 2006 8:49 PM in response to tuckertdog

If you're referring to the firmware update posted on the Initio web site, I wouldn't think you'd need it if the drive mounts/functions normally when connected to the onboard FireWire and USB ports. If my linked download is what you've seen, it's not quite the same thing as introducing a third-party driver to the OS. The external drive's bridge board's firmware is programmed in its ROM chip, and has no effect on the operating system software. Manufacturers often post updated firmware, to address known issues that surface after a device has gotten widespread usage or to provide compatibility with newer OS releases. Is the AcomData drive bus-powered or does it have an external power supply? If the former, I'd suspect a problem with inadequate power through the PCI card. Combo cards can have inherent problems, caused by two different buses attempting to draw power through the same PCI slot. When you've alternately tried the external drive on either port on the IOGEAR card, is the other port unused or do you have another device plugged into it? What types of cards do you have installed in the other PCI slots? You may want to try a different combo card that has a power port to boost its output, or resort to separate USB and FireWire PCI cards.

Reply

Answer 2

tuckertdog Author

Level 1

0 points

Dec 20, 2006 11:18 AM in response to Jeff

External has it's own power supply. I've tried it on all the ports and tried the card in every PCI slot available. I have 2 more pci slots available.
The scanner, etc all work fine on the IOGear card. The drive works only on my built-in ports. The only firewire device I have at the present is the external, so all the other firewire ports built-in or on the pci card are empty. Does this mean something???
Nothing explains why it won't show up on the USB ports that work fine with my other USB things.
Before I got the PCI card, I had problems with another external drive and thought my built-in ports may have fried. Luckily they didn't! But if anything happens, this external also has USB2.0 and I would like to be able to use the PCI card to access it.
It sounds like my efforts to find a PCI card that uses the same chipsets as my Mac did no good. IOGear claimed each was Mac native, but I never considered the fact the same power draw for 2 buses as a problem, as everything on it has it's own power supply.
So the firmware won't help the PCI card as the drive works on my built-ins. If the drive, etc have their own power supply, I guess I don't need a PCI w/ power port. Any other ideas besides seperate PCI cards?

Quicksilver(2002) Dual G4 1 GHz Mac OS X (10.3.9) 1.5G mem nVIDIA GeForce4 MX

Reply

Answer 3

Jeff

Level 6

12,328 points

Dec 20, 2006 12:26 PM in response to tuckertdog

Because the Initio web site has documented a problem with their INIC-1430 bridge board and OS 10.3.6–> (and you're running OS 10.3.9), you might as well download and run the firmware update. It's intended to correct a "drive not mounting" problem, so it might solve it. One would hope that the downloadable utility is a smart flasher that will display an error message, if it fails to find the correct bridge board or firmware version that it's intended to update. You wouldn't want to run a flash utility, that proceeds to flash a device for which it isn't intended. You'll need to know the current firmware version, in order to know which updater to download. With the drive connected to an onboard port and powered ON, try running the Apple System Profiler to see if it identifies the firmware version on the bridge board. If not, you can visually check any markings on the board itself, to confirm the board # and (with any luck) the firmware version.

Reply