FIREWIRE EXTERNAL HD PROBLEMS

[Tintivilo]

System:
Maxtor 1394 External Storage 40gb
Western Digital FireWire CardBus PC Card, PCMCIA adapter
Dell Inspiron 3800
A friend of mine recently purchased the wd and maxtor product in the above list, the problem we are having is; Win98 and Win2k are reporting the drive is fragmented around 50-60% within 2-3 hours of use. When running the nortan `optimizer` the hd becomes inoperable, this also happens when using the win98/win2k defragment programs. After the drive refuses to respond, a restart of the machine is the only thing that can be done in order to get the drive to be working again. Logging out of the machine in win2k doesnt help the matter. Also of note, is when checking the irq's for eadh component, all seem to be using irc9, i know for USB, more than one device can use the same irc, but i wasnt sure how firewire worked. All the Scandisk and system tools to check the drives report the drive is working fine, sdcandisk crahses at random %'s. This is the second maxtor drive that he has, the first one did the same thing, after consulting the maxtor help line, he was told that the problem is in the software, and when talking to western digital, they said it was a possible compatibility issue, but yet on their product information page for the pcmcia adapter, it stats `Compatibility Guaranteed'. I was curious, if powerconsumption from USB devices impacted the 1394/firewire power output, ie; 3 usb devices plugged in , and the hd not working, from lack of power. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Tintivilo

 

[TimeKeeper]

Have you done the window update yet?
The file for "IEEE1394 storage device".

 

[corkyg]

An external IEEE 1394 drive should have a separate power supply . . . should not rely on power from the PC Cardbus slot. The HDD draws too much.

I have a Firewire CDRW and it works better than any other one I have (external SCSI), but it has its own power module.

Is the PC Cardbus Firewire module 6 or 4 wire?

I have tried to use Speed Disk on other computers through the PCMCIA slot, and it will not work that way.

Firewire on my laptop uses IRQ10, which it shares with the laptop's sound system (WindowsME) . . . no problems at all. The 1394 controller is a TI OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 device (built in).

 

[Tintivilo]

to answer the previous question, i tried all the updates for win2k and it didnt do anything that i can see, drive still has the same problem. How can i tell what kind of firewire it is (6/4) and what is the difference? again this is a friends machine and im not as familiar with his machine as i would like to be. The external hd has its own powersupply and is plugged directly into a wall socket. If anyone can put forth some info as to what, no matter how far off they thnnk they are, to help me solve this would be appreciated, thanks in advance!

Tintivilo