Trouble with Firewire external drive

[ElDonAntonio]

I just bought a Lacie 80GB Firewire HD, and connected it to my Pyro cardbus 1394 card on my laptop running Win2k.

I followed the installation steps, but I can't format the drive correctly. I create the partition, and it starts formatting it. At 100%, the formatting stops and I get a Microsoft-typical meaningless error like "formatting has failed".
I tried using Partition Magic Pro 6, same thing (unknown error).

The Pyro card claims to be fully OHCI compliant, but whenever I plug the drive, it seems to be detected as a SBP2 compliant device. Could this cause any problems?

Thanks in advance guys.

 

[RichieZ]

I think SBP2 just means its a serial disk (firewire is a serial interface i think), thats what shows up when I plug in my firewire hd (WD1000JP in a Oxford911 + ISD300[for USB2] enclosure)

Sorry I can't really help you, I used my drive as a internal drive first so it was already formated, then just trew it into the enclosure.

 

[ElDonAntonio]

thanks for the info Richie 🙂

This damn thing is making me mad. Windows2000 keeps hanging, I have to unplug/replug the drive at just the right moment to be able to try and format it. I've rebooted about 15 times today and still no go.

I've discovered however that partitionning using FAT16 works. This is totally unusable though, I'll end up with 15 partitions (for a 80GB drive). I don't understand why FAT32 or NTFS won't work.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Does your box still have W98 / ME as the other boot choice or is it Win2K only? If you have either installed try doing the format in it. Win2K can use the partition once it's formatted.

With Win2K I don't think you can successfully format a single FAT32 larger than 32 GB. You could try 30 + 30 + 20 (better than FAT16!) -or- void your warrnty, crack open the enclosure and temporarily install the drive inside your case. I take no responsibility if you break it in the process!

PMagic 6 didn't work for my 120 GB internal drive either, nor did a DOS boot disk / fdisk. I ended up using IBM's (free) software off their website.

 

[ElDonAntonio]

Nope, my machine is Win2k only...I tried pretty much everything, even a 100 MB partition won't format correctly, in any file system. I stopped my antivirus, uninstalled Norton Utilities, upgraded to SP3, nothing gives.

I don't want to open the drive as I suspect the drive is defective. Could that be the case? is the formatting issue a symptom of a defective drive?

Thanks for your help Dave!! (sorry, I pretty much forced you to help me...😉 )

 

[st3]

I am running two firewire Maxtors (80 gigs each) without incident. They came preformatted but I reformated with NTFS without a problem. If you have access to another machine with 1394 I would try that.

HTH
-Pete

 

[ElDonAntonio]

I DID IT!!! 😀

I checked on Dell's website and found an updated BIOS for my laptop...installed it and bingo, the drive works perfectly!!! it's about 5 times faster than my laptop's drive, according to SiSoft Sandra...I am a happy man 🙂

Thanks for all your input guys, it is (as always) greatly appreciated!

As a side note, for those interested, it's an absolutely great drive. It's a Lacie d2 drive, it runs a Seagate Baracuda 80GB, and the thing is VERY silent. There is no fan on the drive (that's why I picked this drive instead of the maxtors), and the disk stops spinning when it's not used for a long time. There's also an on/off button, something lacking on all the other external drives!