problem with the Oxford 911 firewire chipset?

[WalkingDead]

I'm encountering some issues with firewire cases that uses the Oxford 911 chipset. I have a 2.5" case similar to this but it has a firewire+USB2 combo interface.

2.5" case

The firewire interface will not work with my Toshiba 40gig 5400rpm HDD. WinXP detects the Oxford chipset but it says it's not working and the HDD is not showing up. The USB2 part works fine. I tried in couple of PC (Win2K & WinXP) and Mac (OS 9.2-OS X). I RMA the case and just received a new one but new case is having the same problem.


My friend has the same problem too. His Coolmax firewire+USB2 case's firewire interface will not work with his new Maxtor Diamond Max 9+ 120gig drive. The USB2 interface works fine. However this case works fine with my Seagate 'Cuda V 120gig, WD 120BJ and a very old 10 gig IBM with either of those interfaces. This case uses the Oxford 911 chipset also.

coolmax

There's nothing wrong with my or my friend's HDD. Any idea?

 

[StormRider]

You might try to go to the ADS website and download their firmware utility for the Oxford 911 chipset. I have an ADS firewire case and a generic 3rd party no-name firewire case that uses the Oxford 911 chip. I successfully flashed the bios for the Oxford chip on both cases and it solved my problem with it not recognizing all 80 megs of a Maxtor 80 gig HD. With the old bios, it only recognized 30 megs of it.

Follow the directions carefully -- I almost ruined one of the case with a bad flash!

 

[WalkingDead]

got a link for that? I can't find it on ADS' website.

 

[bacillus]

could be you need the MS hotfix for Inconsistent Gap Count Can Cause 1394 Devices to Not Enumerate

 

[Eug]

Hmmm... I don't have this problem with any of my Oxford 911 chipset enclosures. Indeed, that chipset is the most popular one in existence because it's so fast.

 

[WalkingDead]

Originally posted by: bacillus
could be you need the MS hotfix for Inconsistent Gap Count Can Cause 1394 Devices to Not Enumerate

The problem with those cases is that they won't work in Macs either. So, I'm not sure is really the software issue.

 

[Eug]

Oh. All my Oxford 911 cases work on Macs too. So it's not the chipset per se, but either the implementation of it, or perhaps some weirdness with the rest of the drive.

 

[zzzz]

My friend recently had a simillar problem with a cdrw in external firewire+ usb2 enclosure. It would work in usb 2 but not in firewire. Turns out he had left the jumpers in default slave mode. After changing to master, all works fine. Try to change the jumper setting and see.

 

[WalkingDead]

I already tried that with all the jumper positions on the 3.5" HDD but no help & I don't think there's a master/slave selector for the 2.5" laptop drive. Anyway my friend exchanged his Coolmax firewire case with a different brand and it works find now. However, I still need to get my 2.5" case to work.

 

[StormRider]

Originally posted by: WalkingDead
got a link for that? I can't find it on ADS' website.

I can't find it there anymore -- it looks like they removed it.

 

[WalkingDead]

do you have a copy on you machine that you can send me? thanks

 

[camara120]

Maybe he could post it on the web someplace... I need a copy too. =/

 

[StormRider]

I managed to find someplace to store it for awhile. Here's a link where you can download it.

Oxford Firmware Flasher

Tell me if it fixed your problem.

 

[WalkingDead]

thanks very much for the helps! I'll try this asap

 

[WalkingDead]

Finally find out what's wrong with it. The case can't handels the 5400rpm drive. I put my roommate's 4200rpm IBM drive in it and everything works.

Thanks for all your help.