Clicks and pops when external hard drive is connected.
 

I am running Protools 9 on an iMac 3.06 ghz Core 2 Duo, 4 gb of DDR3 ram, OSx 10.6.7

My interface is a firewire 1814 (drivers last updated in 2009). I have a LYNX converter I use for clocking and as an output to a summing mixer and the summing input back from said mixer.

Because there is only one firewire port on the back of my computer (firewire 800) I am forced to connect my hard drive into the spare port of my interface. I am able to connect my interface using a firewire 400 to 800 cable. Using any other configuration, such as connecting my hard drive first and then connecting my interface through the spare firewire port on the hard drive renders the interface inoperable.

I just set up a summing mixer in my home studio. Up till now I have only been doing editing and in the box mixing at home and my recording work has been happening at an HD facility elsewhere. Today I tried to use my summing mixer for the first time. I run ADAT out of the interface into my converter (my interfaces clocks from this converter), run the analog outs from the converter into the summing mixer, run the 2 track summing output from the mixer back into the converter and then run ADAT out of the converter into the adat input of the interface. My sessions are running off of a SETA drive that sits in an enclosure. When I try to record the summed mix back into a stereo track in protools, once in a while I get a weird digital error. It's not always in the same form. Sometimes it's a click or a pop but it's never a triangle wave (the way a clocking error manifests). Instead, it seems as though the waveform truncates. This might happen only once or twice during a 3 minute song but is nevertheless VERY annoying.

I have spent much of this day trying everything I can to fix the problem. I have reloaded all possible drivers, tried every configuration of connecting the hard drive and interface, defraged the harddrive, dumped digi databases and prefs, tried using a USB hard drive. Every time I get weird digital glitches. Sometimes I'll get all the way through a song only to move on to another and have the problem manifest itself AGAIN. Earlier in the day I moved one song folder to my main internal computer drive and tried to print and had no problems. I'm going to try it again now to make sure that my earlier success was not a fluke.

Has anyone experienced this problem? Is the firewire bus on these older interfaces simply not fast enough to write through? Am I going to have to move sessions to my internal drive whenever I want to sum them? This is a minor inconvenience but an inconvenience none the less.

Thank you so much for your help.


-Mikhail
P.S. I just saw that the Protools 9.0.3 update was released today. I'm downloading it as we speak but there didn't seem to be any fixes addressing my particular issue. Oh well...

Re: Clicks and pops when external hard drive is connected.
 

UPDATE

I moved the files over to the desktop and things work fine from the internal HD. Still can't work off a firewire drive though.

-M

Re: Clicks and pops when external hard drive is connected.
 

Are you using a WD My Book or the like.

Re: Clicks and pops when external hard drive is connected.
 

most likely it's the externals PSU

Re: Clicks and pops when external hard drive is connected.
 

See if any of this helps...

Use the AJA drive utility to see if your drive is performing properly.

Try another external drive.

Try another FW cable.

FW400/800 has plenty of bandwidth for audio. That is not the problem.

Check the RTAS errors checkbox.

To enable error suppression:
1 Choose Setup > Playback Engine.
2 Select Ignore Errors During Playback/Record.
3 If available, you can also select Minimize Additional I/O Latency.
4 Click OK.

Drives must be dedicated for audio (internal or external)
Mac OS file system: Mac OS Extended (also known as HFS+ format)
Mac OS Standard (HFS) formatted drives can be used for transfer, but are not recommended for recording or playback
Pro Tools does not support RAID technology. Please do not activate this feature on any Pro Tools recording drives.

Although not all FireWire drives have been fully tested with Pro Tools systems by Digidesign, you may be able to use FireWire drives from other manufacturers with similar results, given the same guidelines noted above. To date only FireWire drives with the following specifications have performed well with Pro Tools systems:

7200 RPM drive
FireWire 400 drives with the Oxford 911 FireWire chipset interface on Mac OS X & OS 9
FireWire 400 drives with the Oxford 912 or 924 FireWire chipset interface on Mac OS X 10.4
FireWire 800 drives with the Oxford 912 or 924 FireWire chipset interface on Mac OS X 10.4
FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 drives should not be combined.

MacBook Pro FW800 Models
The late 2008 and early 2009 "unibody" MacBook Pro models require an unconventional configuration due to a lack of a FireWire 400 port and only having FireWire 800 instead:

The configuration options are:

1) FW800 port —> FW800 Drive (912 or 924 chipset) —> Out FW400 port on Drive —> Pro Tools LE FireWire audio interface

2) FW800 port —> FW800 to FW400 converter cable —> FW400 Drive (911 chipset) —> Multiple FW400 Drives (911 chipset) as needed for maximum track count —> Pro Tools LE FireWire audio interface