Please help, external firewire drive not seen by WinXP

[tom3]

I'm running WinXP pro. I have the firewire card installed fine, it shows up as "Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller" in device manager. The external enclosure I'm using is the Pyro Drive Kit made by ADS Tech. It's the newer version with only 2 firewire ports in the back and the Oxford 911 chipset.

I have been trying to use a Verbatim (rebadged LiteOn) 32x CDRW drive with it. I set the jumper on the drive to Master as per the drive kit instructions. I have installed the "DriveMode" utility that is supposed to help me pick what mode (HD or optical drive or auto) to operate the drive kit in. I then turn on the power to the external drive, connect the cable to the drive, then connect the cable to my running computer. Nothing happens. I go into device manager and tell it to scan for new hardware and still nothing. I've tried setting the jumper on the CDRW drive to slave, to cable select and have even tried to take the jumper off to no avail.

When i run the DriveMode utility, it seems to be able to see the drive kit. It tells me the time stamp and the firmware of the drive kit, and tells me that it is currently set at auto-configure mode. I've tried to click on the button that sets it to optical drive but an error message pops up saying unable to upload, try disconnecting and reconnecting drive.

I'm at wit's end.. someone please help me solve my problem.

thanks!

 

[tom3]

up

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: tom3
I'm running WinXP pro. I have the firewire card installed fine, it shows up as "Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller" in device manager. The external enclosure I'm using is the Pyro Drive Kit made by ADS Tech. It's the newer version with only 2 firewire ports in the back and the Oxford 911 chipset.

I have been trying to use a Verbatim (rebadged LiteOn) 32x CDRW drive with it. I set the jumper on the drive to Master as per the drive kit instructions. I have installed the "DriveMode" utility that is supposed to help me pick what mode (HD or optical drive or auto) to operate the drive kit in. I then turn on the power to the external drive, connect the cable to the drive, then connect the cable to my running computer. Nothing happens. I go into device manager and tell it to scan for new hardware and still nothing. I've tried setting the jumper on the CDRW drive to slave, to cable select and have even tried to take the jumper off to no avail.

When i run the DriveMode utility, it seems to be able to see the drive kit. It tells me the time stamp and the firmware of the drive kit, and tells me that it is currently set at auto-configure mode. I've tried to click on the button that sets it to optical drive but an error message pops up saying unable to upload, try disconnecting and reconnecting drive.

I'm at wit's end.. someone please help me solve my problem.

thanks!

This is not going to help you, but I had the same problem once... until I reformatted. I was having other problems with XP too so I was gonna reformat anyway, but this clinched it. Now, all of my noname brand Firewire enclosures work fine.

 

[tom3]

Eug, can you recommend some firewire cards and enclosures that have worked for you? I've been looking at the enclosure at compgeeks. Is that a good one? Also, what chipset should I look for in a firewire card. I know of the TI, VIA and NEC chipsets.

Finally, I have a general question to using firewire peripherals. If/when everything is set up correctly, what is the proper procedure to use the peripherals? Do I power on the external drive first, then plug it into an already running computer? Or do I plug it in first then power it on? I'm guessing I won't have to power down the PC every time I mount or remove a drive since firewire is supposed to allow hot swapping?

Thanks a bunch!

 

[corkyg]

All three of my systems have Firewire - two have PCI cards. Once they are in, then connecting an external 1394 is simply a matter of hot plugging it. In your case, I would suspect the "kit." All my external CD/RW drives are built that way - no conversion kits. There is no "master/slave" setting on a factor external device.

If nothing happens when you hot plug the device, then there is no signal being sent by it.

The normal and proper way is to hot plug a Firewire "on" device into a running system. A good test would be to borrow some Firewire external device that is known to work and try it.

One of my 1394 PCI cards is by OrangeMicro and the other by Siig. The laptop has it built in. The OrangeMicro card uses a Nec controller chip. The Siig uses TI. The laptop uses TI. I've never touched a VIA one.

 

[Eug]

I bought a Lucent noname brand card. It didn't work on my BX board. I then returned it and got a VIA card with the Iwill brand. Works great in both Windows 2000 and XP.

I turn my drives on and off at will, while the computer is on:
Running Windows XP. Eug decides to burn a CD. Turns on CD-RW and XP makes a noise saying it's installed. Eug burns CD. Eug turns off CD-RW and XP makes a noise saying it's uninstalled. I do the exact same thing on my Mac.

All three of my systems have Firewire - two have PCI cards. Once they are in, then connecting an external 1394 is simply a matter of hot plugging it. In your case, I would suspect the "kit." All my external CD/RW drives are built that way - no conversion kits. There is no "master/slave" setting on a factor external device.

Yeah, it's quite possibly the kit, but I do use that Compgeeks kit, and two other noname brand kits as well, and they all work fine with both my PC and my Mac. By the way, corky-g, which external devices do you use? Some of the "pre-made" devices out there are simply standard drives (complete with master/slave shorts) in a custom case and with a custom firmware.

 

[corkyg]

Eug: I have two QueFires and an Acom. They are all extremely reliable. I can also run old SCSI I removable drives through an OrangeMicro converter daisy-chained to a Firewire external. ALso have USB 2.0 alive and well. Each system also has a Firewire Que external M2 drive for common data storage.

All my previous burners were SCSI (H-P, Yamaha, Plextor, and Pinnacle.) That goes back to about 1995 when burners cost about $900 and blanks were several $$$ each.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: corky-g
Eug: I have two QueFires and an Acom. They are all extremely reliable. I can also run old SCSI I removable drives through an OrangeMicro converter daisy-chained to a Firewire external. ALso have USB 2.0 alive and well. Each system also has a Firewire Que external M2 drive for common data storage.

All my previous burners were SCSI (H-P, Yamaha, Plextor, and Pinnacle.) That goes back to about 1995 when burners cost about $900 and blanks were several $$$ each.

Dunno about your drives, but my friend has a Que 12X CD-RW. It's an IDE Plextor 12X CD-RW in a custom case and with a custom firmware. Actually the custom firmware kinda bugged us when we were trying to update the drive. The flash utility was identical to the Plextor one and even the numbering and content for the firmware updates was identical but the Plextor firmware couldn't be installed (not that we were going to force it). We used the Que update of course, but they were 2 steps behind the Plextor in terms of the updates.

 

[corkyg]

Good points, Eug - but, why should I update what works perfectly? I have seen firmware updates result in problems too many times. I don't get coasters off of any of these devices, music or data. Mostly use them to create photo CDs with run-time slide shows w/background music and transition effects.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: corky-g
Good points, Eug - but, why should I update what works perfectly? I have seen firmware updates result in problems too many times. I don't get coasters off of any of these devices, music or data. Mostly use them to create photo CDs with run-time slide shows w/background music and transition effects.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

True. However I think in his case the firmware update was to increase compatibility with certain media and software. However, if it's working well for you then there's no real reason to update.

 

[tom3]

I've ordered the firewire/usb enclosure from compgeeks, and I'll see if that works better for me.

while we are on the subject of firewire hardware, I was having problem installing a generic firewire/usb PCI card. I had posted about my problem here in the tech support forum. Here i'll copy the post in full:

I just installed a firewire/usb combo card (compusa brand, TI and Lucent chipset) on a windows xp machine. In device manager, the firewire card shows up in two places, once as 1394 controller, which looks fine, and the other under network adapters as "1394 net adatper". This is the one that has the yellow exclamation mark, saying "unable to start device".

After reading around for a bit, it seems like there's the net adapter entry because windows xp can do networking over firewire connections. Is it normal to have the yellow exclamation mark next to it if i'm not using the firewire card as a network controller? Can I just disable the device (1394 net adapter) and still be able to use the firewire ports for devices?

thanks!

I have not yet solved this problem but have gone out and gotten another firewire card, sold by ADSTech, which installed fine as both 1394 controller and also an additional network adapter. If either of you guys can shed some light on what I could do to solve the mystery with the Compusa firewire/usb card, it would be awesome!

thanks!!