Firewire with destructional mind

[TimBrandt]

I have en external harddrive, with USB2/Firewire. When I use it with Firewire on a Mac, it works like a charme, but 50% of the time that I use it with a Windows PC, it destroys my partitions, and turns them into an unreadable RAW-"file-system". Is that a common Windows issue, or is it just me ? I always "Safely disconnect" the drive.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Many of the dual-interface chipsets are just less reliable than either pure USB or pure firewire.

You might also try doing the initial formatting on the PC instead of the Mac, since Mac software is used to adapting to PCs while PC software doesn't care about macs.

 

[rocketPack]

What filesystem? I think ideally you want to use FAT32 for interoperability between Mac and Windows. If you use anything else that might be the problem. Also, have you run any hardware analysis on the drive to make sure it's working OK? Lastly, whats the power situation? Perhaps your Mac can supply ample power to the drive via firewire while your Windows PC cannot. This could cause issues like you mentioned.

-Scott

 

[TimBrandt]

#DaveSimmons
What do you mean by "pure" ?
I have formatted the drive on a PC, using FAT32. It's a 300GB drive, with 2 partitions of 150GB.

#rocketPack
It's FAT32. The drive is in mint condition. I've jused it as an internal drive just to test it, and no problem there. On Mac it also works 100%. It has an external power-supply.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Pure = only = single format = only USB2 or firewire, not both.

 

[TimBrandt]

Aaah... so eg. buy a board with USB2 and then buy a Firewire-PCIcard ?

 

[VirtualLarry]

The problem is Windows. It's a bit stupid when it comes to firewire, and tends to do that sort of thing. Apparently, it attempts to send larger and larger-sized I/O packets to the device, until it starts sending packets that are larger than the internal bridge chipset can handle, and then it kind of dies, sometimes taking the filesystem's integrity out with it. It's a pretty common known issue. If you want reliable external HD attachment for a PC, you should stick to USB. If you are in fact using it with USB on the PC, then I'm not certain what the issue is, start standard USB troubleshooting, power, signal-integrity, host-controller drivers, etc.

 

[TimBrandt]

I'm using USB when i'm at my parents, because my fathers computer doen't have firewire. It can also mess it up pretty bad, but only if I for some reason disconnect it without safe removal. I think i'll just use USB from now on. Thanks !