Big Crash With Firewire!!!!, I'm desperate Options

[iroiri]

Hi Guys!

First of all, thank you so much for the insights on Panther 10.3.9 - you guys are geniuses!

On a more frustrating note, today something REALLY strange happened to me:

As I was backing up some files from my OS 9.2.2 hard drive to an external firewire drive, the computer crashed. So I restarted and I got that frightening blue folder with the little question mark blinking, obiviously looking for the boot up drive.... After a few restart with the same results, it automatically booted up on my second hard drive, that has X on it. No firewire on sight, and no OS 9 either!!!!!
What's going on???????????

Please, S.O.S. big time, I have to deliver a project by tomorrow!!!!

Grazie!
Iro

[lepetitmartien]

It's a mix up between OS X and the hard drive. OS 9 and OS X don't handle drives the same way and from time to time, it shows…

You must start up from your OS X install CD, use it to repair drives and permissions while you're at it (the tools are in the 2nd menu from left) and tell the mac again on which drive it must start up.

Another proof the Apple legend of double boot computers is not that great. The best way to avoid such adventures is to have separated OS 9 and Classic for OS X, to keep the OS 9 from being recognized as a Classic environment (remove the 34 files with Classic in their name in the system folder) and the most important: have OS 9 (not classic) and OSX on different drives and if possible different controllers (not the same IDE chain or one in SCSI the other in IDE). As you're not bothered with such possibilities, one of the cause of your problem may be unclean mains added to the 9/X drive handling.

Also, when you work in OS 9, try to use the OS X firewire drive as less as possible. Keep it at least off if not unplugged. Have it only on when you need it.

Hope this helps

[iroiri]

Merci lepetitmartien!

I'll try this right away.
By the way, I do have 9 and X on 2 different drives, but I'll do what you say about the 34 files for Classic, and I'll try to put the 2 drives on different controllers (though I'm not sure I can...)

Mille Grazie!
Iro

[dixiechicken]

If possible do a search on your firewire-drive to try to establish wich controller-chip it has.

Firewire drives with the "Oxford 912"
( at least I think it was the 912-chipset) chipset had severe troubles and corrupted the file system on lots of fw-drives with datalosses as a consequence.
That was under Jaguar OS-X 10.2 era.

Check the manufacturer website for firmware updates to your firewire drive.
Check this link out from Maxtor: (Oxford 922 chipset actually)
http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor....hp?p_faqid=1811

Problem:

Apple has identified an issue with external FireWire hard drives using the Oxford 922 bridge chip-set with firmware version 1.02 that can result in the loss of data stored on the disk drive". *

Users' experienced problems when booting the machine with a FireWire drive attached, Panther reports that , "...you have inserted an unrecognized disk," with the option to eject, initialize or ignore.* After pressing ignore users are unable to utilize the drive.

Solution:

Maxtor Firewire hard drives are not affected by this problem because Maxtor 1394a FireWire drives use the Oxford 911 Chipset (see Maxtor Knowledge Base Answer ID: 991 for details). Maxtor 1394b (FireWire 800) drives use the Oxford 912 chipset. Apple said the problems only affect FireWire drives that use the Oxford 922 bride chip-set with firmware version 1.02. *

Perhaps my memory is lapsing - anyway try to find out - and try to do a firmware update - IF such exists - before putting new data on your fire wire drive.
Cheers: Dixiechicken

[lepetitmartien]

Thanks Dixie, I've forgot this, which is important!

iroiri, it's not 34 files but three or four (you can see for how long I haven't opened a classic system folder)