formatting fire wire drives

[stackatrack]

On my PC, I used Partion Magic 8.1 to create the FAT 32 format on an 80 gig Lacie fire wire drive. I am able to record/play on a PC running XP, P.T. 6.4 just fine. When I try that on my G4 running OSX 10.3.4, P.T. 6.4, I get an error message that the fire wire drive is not a recognized audio drive.
I want to be able to move sessions to and from both platforms (Mac/ PC).
Any thoughts ?

[José Luis Díaz]

Hi Stackatrack,
Have you tried to format that Fire Wire disk using Disk Utility?
Jose Luis

[JFreak]

i'm not sure about this, but i think either way you have read/write capability on one side and read capability on other side, you just have to choose what platform you consider your main platform, and choose format accordingly.

1) format as NTFS drive - this can be read in osx.
2) format as HFS+ drive - this can be read in windows with special software.

either way you have to copy the files to some other drive in your secondary platform. but i'm just guessing here, because i have not tried (and do not have the need for) cross-platform drives.. in theory this should be correct information, though, and i guess you cannot succeed with FAT drives in any case.

did you check the answerbase? i guess this issue must have been addressed...

[detroitkruk]

wait...wait...stop....go the opposite way!...we just got this figured out for my friends studio....

keep the lacie drive completely mac formatted...then buy the latest version of "Mac Opener" by Dataviz for your Bill Gates box...this is not one of those os "emulators" it's just a file opening and conversion application...recognizes any mac file or drive...regardless of size and file type...

he now bounces sessions from his G4 pro tools setup to his pc nuendo/pro tools home studio all day long...

rock out...
detroitkruk

[stackatrack]

hi y'all...
This has been a real journey....Thanks for all the positive feedback here..I am now formatted as HFS+
and using MacDrive I am able to view the HFS+ drive..it just won't open the file on the PC unless I copy to an internal drive on the PC. So I'm thinking that I should probably get Mac Opener and see if that works.
It's funny but I thought getting a 002r and a new firewire drive would be much easier for me to move stuff back & forth.
Funny, eh ?
I miss my 001.....

[katoramone]

Mac opener is good, but the free and easy solution is (if you have XP) format it fat32 with disk tools. Do a search on the PC it's there and totally buried. Mac's read PC drives wayyy easier then the other way around.

[Alex Rodriguez]

Mac opener is good, but the free and easy solution is (if you have XP) format it fat32 with disk tools. Do a search on the PC it's there and totally buried. Mac's read PC drives wayyy easier then the other way around.


Yeah, but, if the FW drive is FAT formatted, it won't be recognized as a valid audio drive by ProTools. Oh, I see, I guess you mean he can then copy the data from the FAT formatted drive to a new drive (OS Extended) in a Mac easier than the other way around, right?

[stackatrack]

Hey....
All I wanted to do initially was be able to move a firewire drive back and forth between two seperate computers I have for music production. (a 2.4 gig IBM PC with XP and a G4/ 1.4 ghz/ OSX).
I have no problem formatting the drive anyway to do this but it's not working any way I try.
So now I'm back to 3 partitions on an 80 gig Lacie Firewire made by the OSX Disk utility.
With MacDrive on the XP , I can move files easily enough...I just cannot record or playback from this drive on both machines....That would be nice, eh ?
When I'm using these firewire drives in a Pro Tools TDM environment, I have no problems whatsoever.
After bringing it home to my 002r to do overdubs, I get under and over buffer errors continually.
I suspect that because I'm using a fire wire drive and a fire wire recording interface, it boggs down the fire wire buss. There's 30+ tracks going with a bunch of plug ins and I think it's too taxing. I plan to add a second firewire PCI card to see if it works better.

The 002r is what it is...an entry level version of the real thing. Why do you think they
call it "LE"

[JFreak]

I plan to add a second firewire PCI card to see if it works better.



it will!

there's something wrong with panther firewire implementation and currently the only way to make your 002 system to work reliably with firewire hard drives is to use your audio interface (002) in different firewire buss than your firewire drives. using two firewire busses it is very easy to record 32 tracks into a firewire400 hard drive, although that'd be a dummy test session because le hardware only allows 18 unique simultaneous inputs

[stackatrack]

Well you know Apple and or Digidesign will be the last to respond to this but I do believe you're spot on with this adding an extra firewire card.
I'll do it today...
Thanks to everyone for participating in this discussion !