9131 Error, Lacie Triple interface FW 800

[Sevitzky]

I'm a bit of a newbie here, so sorry if I haven't found all the relevant threads.

My system stats are:
PowerBook G4
1.5 GHz PowerPC
2 GB DDR SDRAM
OS X v 10.4.11

Mbox 2 Mini
Pro Tools LE 7.1

LaCie Triple Interface
7200 RPM, <10ms access

I've got a 160 GB Lacie (Triple Interface) hard drive. It's about three years old. It has a Windows partition, a Mac Partition, and a 10 GB Mac OS Extended (Journaled) NOT case sensitive partition.

I'm getting the 9131 on this disk, using FW 800. Drive is enabled for recording in workspace window.

I've been through the troubleshooting guide here, and searched and read through many 9131 posts. It seems Partitioning, and Disk Utility re-formatting are the fixes, but I've done both w/o avail. There doesn't seems to be a specific consensus on what causes this problem.

I'm pretty sure the Lacie is w/in spec for RPM and access time. I don't know what chipset is used, because it's about 3 years old, now. But the drive has to be good. It's not been used much.

Any tips?


PS, My MBox 2 Mini shows up as an Mbox 2 in Setup>I/O. Is that normal?



Thanks, all.

[albee1952]

Does it work with the FW400 connection? If so, use that as FW800 is hit or miss with Pro Tools. If not, maybe the non-Mac partition is causing the problem?

[DigiTechSupt]

It has a Windows partition, a Mac Partition, and a 10 GB Mac OS Extended (Journaled) NOT case sensitive partition.

I'm guessing that may be part, or all, of the problem. Have you tried it without any partitions? Also, you say it has a Mac partition and a 10GB Mac OS Extended partition - what, exactly, is the 'Mac partition'?

A 10GB MacOS Extended partition, out of 160GB total, is not much to work with and is a possible indicator for 9131's (too little drive space available, as measured compared to the entire drive size).

[Sevitzky]

Thanks for the replies.


Still no progress using those options:

Tried the FW 400.

Out of the 160 GB Lacie disk, I've formatted a 70 GB MAC OS Extended Journaled (no case sensitive) partition and selected Write Zeros under security tab. there are now three partitions on the disk: Windows 70 GB, MAC Ext Jrnled 70 GB, and MAC Ext Jrnled 10 GB.

Any other ideas?


This doesn't have anything to do with my MBox 2 Mini showing up as an MBox 2 regular in the I/O settings? (for instance, I have the option to assign S/PDIF, which doesn't physically exist on my unit)


Thanks.

[DigiTechSupt]

Why are you still partitioning the drive 3 ways? What happens if you only give it 1 partition - Mac OS Extended Journaled (for testing purposes)? If you disconnect the drive and do a test using the internal drive, do you still get 9131's?

[Sevitzky]

I'm in process of clearing the HD to give it a single partition. Will report back.

As far as using the internal/boot HDD, yes audio will play without apparent errors. (Originally, I also had 9131's, but this was before changing some MAC system settings)

So this suggests a problem w/ the external FW HDD...

[1ace1]

FW 800 is not supported by protools 7.1, and having a drive partitioned with so many different format types has got to be the cause of any potential issue.
Accessing data must be made more complex with so many differing formats all on one load of HD platters. TYhe read write head must going bonkers trying to find it all. Try a single format no partition (MAC OS extended).

Godd luck

A:)

[Sevitzky]

Problem solved.

It appears that it was the NTFS partition on the HDD that was giving me the 9131 errors.

I realized it probably wasn't the ideal configuration, but I didn't think it would be such a show stopper. I guess I have a lot to learn about PT & HDD's in general.

I tried 2 partitions of (HFSJ), and this worked fine as well. Are partitions generally not recommended on audio drives?

Thanks for the speedy and helpful assistance, everyone.


Kevin

[1ace1]

In my opinion it would always beb better to have three different drives rather than one drive with three partitions. It just means less work for the Computer, and less work for the HD read / write heads. it can also reduce the fragmentation of the disc, which can result in non-contigeous files. Some thing to aviod on big audio projects.

A:)