"drive not readable by this computer" HELP ! (firewire)

[c zarkos]

I just tried to mount a 80 gig firewire drive that we've been using for backup for the last 6 months or so and I get a prompt saying "can't be read by this computer" and the only options are "initialize" or "eject"
I ejected and tried again with the same results.
Of course ther is stuff on there that never quite made it to tape back up (I told me so) and is gone forever if not retrieved.
What's my next move?
My understanding is that Norton and Disk warrior can't really help on these drives, is that the case? I also had a buddy whose firewire drive directory's were corrupted by using an earlier op system, but that isn't the case here.
Before this happened the drive did mount, I then started to drag some files over to a working drive when I had a freeze up...I restarted and was greeted with the before-mentioned "cant read" prompt. I'm treally not sure where to even start wit this.... HELP (please?) [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img]

[mtung]

Disk Warrior can help. It rebuilds the directory. I have had only a few lost files/folders. It's not perfect but you will probably get most if not all info back

Good luck.

mtung

[Peter Duemmler]

I´ve had exactly the same with an Adaptec Duo Connect card in a beige G3.
The harddisk works with two other FireWire/USB combo cards though.

What are you using as the FW host?

Peter

[Doug Ring]

Are you attempting to run a Pro Tools session directly from the drive? If so, do you have anything other than Apple's firewire drivers in the extensions folder? Then trash them and use only Apple's drivers. If you use other drivers, the drive icon on the desktop will have a firewire symbol on top of it. When you disable those drivers and restart the firewire icon will disappear and Pro Tools will be able to see your drive. You can drag and drop to and from a firewire drive all you like while the other drivers are installed, but Pro Tools won't read from it until you disable them and go with the Apple drivers.

[c zarkos]

The problem is that when I even turn on the drive, the prompt appears that says "this disk unreadable by this computer" then two options "eject" or "initialize"
I don't want to wipe the files on this disk obviously so I hit eject....
I then run the Apple system profiler and there is no drive seen on the firewire bus.
Disk Warrior sees no drive either, so how can I begin to repair it? I'll try tossing any extraneous drivers that are non apple but I'm starting to get a bad feeling here.
I was told that there is a possibility of taking the drive out of the Fire wire case and installing it in the Mac that maybe the internal bus will recognize it???
excuse the ignorance but any help would be great right now. Craig [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[Avid]

If you can get Drive Setup to recognize it on the Firewire bus, you could try just using the Update Driver command, which will not wipe the data, to see if that helps any. If you can't do that on the firewire port, then you could take it out of the case and update the disk drivers on the internal IDE bus.

[Peter Duemmler]

I´m still interested in what FireWire hardware configuration you use.
Built-in or PCI card (and if PCI card, which one)?

Peter

[zzzcajon]

Peter, it's built in as far as I know ...stock g4 400. Craig

[Doug Ring]

If you run System Profiler from the Apple Menu can the Mac see the drive from there? If not, there may be a driver problem on your Mac. Can you try the drive on another Mac? Clearly if it doesn't show up there either, you may have directory problems. But as tech support says, you can always take the drive out and go IDE.

[Sonsey]

We've had this a problem a few times ourselves. Here's what we have to do.

1. Make sure the drivers that came with the drive are loaded (I'm guessing Lacie - we've had this problem with a few of them). Disk Warrior can only see the directory if those drivers are installed.

2. Run Disk Warrior. The missing drives will hopefully appear at the bottom of the list. Be sure to preview your data BEFORE rebuilding the driectory. Other programs such as Norton can mess this up so check first.

3. Finally- in one case we had to remove the drive from it's casing (this WILL void your warranty if the drive is still under it) and attach it directly to the IDE bus on a G3 to get the directory back.

Good Luck...