Leopard Kills Firewire?

[mnewman]

I did an upgrade install of Leopard a couple of weeks ago. As that install has been problematic, I decided to do a brand new install.

I have my 10.4.11 install cloned to an external Firewire drive. However, since that data is pre-Leopard I decided to buy another external Firewire drive to which I'll clone my current install and do a migration after the clean install.

Sadly, the new Firewire drive will usually not mount. I got it to mount once, but it dismounted during the clone. And, now my old external drive will no longer mount.

Both drives work fine on my PowerBook running 10.4.11.

When I use System Profiler to examine the Firewire bus I get the following:

FireWire Bus:

Warning: Unable to list FireWire devices.
Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec


Any ideas? I've seen this same problem mentioned elsewhere, but no solutions offered.

I guess I'm hosed.

[dandj]

A common suggestion in the forums to these sort of problems is to log-in as another user and see if the problem persists. This sometimes helps, especially if there are permissions problems.

[ThreeBKK]

I'm using an external FireWire drive with my Leopard install, no problems.

I have to say that yours looks like a hardware problem. Were you using the same FW cable for the iMac and PowerBook, or a different cable? The cable itself might be damaged. The next main suspect would be the FireWire port on the iMac. I assume that your iMac has only one FW port, right? Are you sure that FireWire devices were functioning with your iMac before installing Leopard?

Can you boot the iMac from the external Tiger drive? How about using FW target mode to test the FW port on the iMac?

Please list more details about the drives and the Mac you are trying to use them on. Xlr8yourmac.com usually keeps a database of drive compatibility, so you might head on over to that site to see if your drives are mentioned.

By the way, you don't need to clone your internal over to an external just to re-install Leopard. You will be taking a risk, but you can just select "archive and install" from the Leopard installer. You can even select "preserve users and network settings" to keep the user accounts intact. Then, use the discs that came with your computer to install any of the iLife apps that you use.

[ThreeBKK]

You should use Techtools Deluxe or Pro to test the FireWire port. I think that Apple Hardware Test (AHT) located on your install disc will also test FW functionality, but not sure about that. If you've misplaced the install discs, you can download (http://www.info.apple.com/support/aht.html) the appropriate AHT from the Apple website. After downloading, you can burn to disc, and use that to test your hardware.

[mnewman]

I booted into the external "Tiger" drive and had no Firewire problems at all. Managed to clone the "bad" Leopard install to the new Firewire drive for later migration. (My internal drive doesn't have enough free space to do an archive and install.)

I tried several different cables all with the same result. The Firewire drive won't mount under Leopard on the iMac, but mounts instantly under Tiger on both the iMac and PowerBook.

It's definitely a Leopard problem.

As I mentioned, there is a long thread about this issue on Apple's discussion board:

Topic : External firewire drive problems (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1203090&tstart=0)

I see that Seagate drives are especially problematic with Leopard. My new drive is a Seagate Barracuda SATA 250 GB in a WinTech enclosure.

[ThreeBKK]

How are your external drives formatted? Are they Mac OS Extended (Journaled), or UFS?

I doubt that the drives are causing trouble, more likely it's the enclosures that aren't working with Leopard. Try using the USB ports on those enclosures (if they exist) for the time being, then get yourself some different enclosures. You won't be able to boot using USB, but sending data back and forth over USB should work.

Before you ask, BKK has only got about 1 or 2 different choices for FireWire enclosures. I've looked everywhere for some decent ones, but no luck. You'll be better off ordering from another country.

[mnewman]

Now that I did a clean install of Leopard the external drives are working fine. No idea why. However, other people who reported the problem said that using Leopard Cache Cleaner to delete the system cache files fixed their problem. Maybe my upgrade install left some dirty cache files around which were cleaned up by the clean install.

The external drives are all Mac OS Extended and Journaled.

[ThreeBKK]

Now that I did a clean install…

That rings a bell. :)

I'm glad everything is working as it should. Now you can finally sit back and enjoy it!

[dgoldsm]

I have also encountered the problem of not being able to connect to an external fire drive after upgrading an Intel MacBook Pro to Leopard. In addition I received the message:

"FireWire Bus:

Warning: Unable to list FireWire devices.
Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec"

in the System Profiler.

Nevertheless I was able to correct the problem using the following routine.

1) Make a clone of the Leopard system running on the MacBook Pro using an external HD that can run either firewire or USB, and make that clone with the USB connection.

2. shut down the MacBook, change the external disk connection from USB to firewire, and reboot holding down the option key

3. Both boot volumes should show on the screen. Choose the external continue and continue the bootup.

4. Even when the bootup is successful, you may still not see the icon for one or the other hard disks (internal or external). Run Disk Utility on (Disk Repair and Permissions) on the non-bootup disk.

5, Repeat all of the above but boot the machine on the internal drive.

Why does this - or better, why did it - work for my MacBook Pro. No idea! Nevertheless, it did work: all my firewire devices now work on the laptop, and the System Profiler lists all attached firewire components.

[thedrummerjh]

I have a new MacBook Pro. It will only run Leopard.
All the firewire drives disappeared after a restart yesterday.

Apple Tech got them all mounted again like this:
Disconnect all cables and power supply.
Zap the PRAM:Restart holding down Apple/Alt/P/R and listen for 3 chimes then release the keys and allow to restart. This by itself will not cure the problem.
then power down and take out battery.
Press and hold power button for 5 secs.
Reinstall Battery - restart and voila! the Firewire drives mount again.
Worked for me.
jonh

[ThreeBKK]

then power down and take out battery.
Press and hold power button for 5 secs.
Reinstall Battery - restart and voila!

This is the procedure for an SMC reset. It works on Apple laptops (MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air) which have Intel CPUs. It won't work on older PowerPC based Macs. They require a different procedure to reset their PMUs.

[Alex Jones]

This seemed to work for me re Rob

Shut down and unplug everything including the power supply
Press and hold the power button 5 sec a few times to dump the capacitors
use grounding strap
near front on mother board there is a 1/4 inch square box with a little white button, press and hold for 5 sec, for good measure do it again.
Reassemble
Plug in the machine and power up. See if that fixed it. This time it did 8/01/09 10.5.6, 8 core 2.93 preocessor

Thanks for the above input guys.

Alex Jones
Digital Tech Pittsburgh
www.SteelGateStudio.com

[vinceproe]

I have had this problem for 3 Canon cameras, canon even wanted me to send back to claiming the firewire ports work fine. My GL-2 worked for a few times and then I would notice on the screen of the camera the words "DV IN" and also got the error unable to detect firewire devices.

Unplug everything, shut down, remove battery and memory ... let sit for a couple minutes .... reinstall memory, battery, restart with NOT devices plugged in then plug camera in only ..... At least I can now import video when I need to! Hope it helps someone else!

:)