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Mac Forum / General / Hardware / August 2007Multiple Concurrent Hard Drive Failures -- Who Bears Responsibility?
A couple days ago I installed a brand new LaCie 500 GB external drive, adding it to my firewire 800 chain which already hosted two LaCie drives, one 500 GB and one 160 GB. I'm running on a MacBook Pro and using OS X 10.4.10. The new drive was intended to be a recipient of SuperDuper! backups After connecting the new drive I used Disk Utility to partition it into three equal sized volumes. I then proceeded to run SuperDuper! to create a backup on one of the partitions. A few minutes into the backup SuperDuper! produced an error message stateing that there had been a failure on the recipient drive. A quick check of things revealed that both the new 500 GB drive and the 160 GB drive on the firewire chain had undergone failure and would no longer even turn on. In addition the internal drive in the MacBook failed. Fortunately I had yet another set of external drives that hadn't failed, one containing backups. At this time I am booting off of one of those drives and using the other as a recipient of backups. The failure has been reported to LaCie but as of now I haven't received any information back in regards to replacing the faulty drive, the one that appears to have been the initiator of the failures. I have received suggestions from LaCie regarding methods to verify that the failures were indeed such, and when followed these suggestions have essentially confirmed that the drives were in a state of failure. I have been told that it is in the nature of the beast that an electrical failure on a device attached by firewire can propagate to other devices also attached via firewire. My question is whether I should expect LaCie to absorb the cost of replacing the two dead external drives, and the dead internal drive? The other damaged external drive was also a LaCie. As a somewhat ironic aside, it was just within the last few weeks that I posted here in these discussions that I had experienced extremely reliable performance from my LaCie drives.  SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com >A couple days ago I installed a brand new LaCie 500 GB external drive, adding >it to my firewire 800 chain which already hosted two LaCie drives, one 500 GB [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] >posted here in these discussions that I had experienced extremely reliable >performance from my LaCie drives. Aye, to my query about their reliability. FWIW, my wife and I purchased purchased the Data Rescue product we tried in demo mode (which seemed to find all the files). We ran the Data Rescue on the 1TB LaCie. My only gripe is that the files are returned with only crypitic names with extensions that identify the type of file (.JPG, .PDF, .CR2, .M4A, etc.). The recovery disk did show all the files as they were named but when I looked at them from the command line with xxd, they all dumped out a huge chunks of nulls. My wife has been, for days now, going through each of the cryptic named files to determine what is there. Fortunately, she has the iTunes library on her 80GB iPod and with some freeware that was easily recovered saving a great about of time (there are close to 10K songs!). She has all of the latest pictures still in Aperture so most of the vaults which were stored on the 1TB LaCie would need to be restored either. This has been a horrible experience though. I am loathe to purchase an- other LaCie because of this experience. While we are on the subject, SCSI has length limitations. Are they such limitations on Firewire chains and how many devices can I safely connect in a Fireware chain (I know.... read the specs.)? If anybody has a quick answer, please let me know. I would gladly use several smaller drives in lieu of one mammoth spindle. SignatureVAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" http://tmesis.com/drat.html > In article <0001HW.C2EC57D2001F21D0B019F94F@news.supernews.com>, > TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft@mac.com> writes: [responding to my opening posting in this thread in which I detailed the concurrent loss of two external drives on a firewire chain and my internal drive] > Aye, to my query about their reliability. > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > named but when I looked at them from the command line with xxd, they all > dumped out a huge chunks of nulls. I did have the good fortune in having one of the three drives on the firewire chain survive and that drive hosted a SuperDuper! backup made minutes before the failure, so all of my data was preserved. After the failure I cloned the backup data onto an external drive that is connected via firewire 400 (it is the only device on that chain) and have been booting from that drive. > My wife has been, for days now, going through each of the cryptic named > files to determine what is there. Fortunately, she has the iTunes library [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > answer, please let me know. I would gladly use several smaller drives in > lieu of one mammoth spindle. The three drives on the firewire 800 chain were connected with firewire 800 cables roughly two feet in length each. Many thanks for taking the time to reply. SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com > While we are on the subject, SCSI has length limitations. Are they such > limitations on Firewire chains and how many devices can I safely connect IIRC, 15 feet max between devices, 240 feet max for entire chain, 63 devices max on chain. > in a Fireware chain (I know.... read the specs.)? If anybody has a quick > answer, please let me know. I would gladly use several smaller drives in > lieu of one mammoth spindle. Signatureemail to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com. > A couple days ago I installed a brand new LaCie 500 GB external drive, adding > it to my firewire 800 chain which already hosted two LaCie drives, one 500 GB > and one 160 GB. I'm running on a MacBook Pro and using OS X 10.4.10. The new > drive was intended to be a recipient of SuperDuper! backups > > After connecting the new drive I used Disk Utility to partition it into three > equal sized volumes. I then proceeded to run SuperDuper! to create a backup > on one of the partitions. A few minutes into the backup SuperDuper! produced [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > A quick check of things revealed that both the new 500 GB drive and the 160 > GB drive on the firewire chain had undergone failure and would no longer even > turn on. In addition the internal drive in the MacBook failed. > [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > posted here in these discussions that I had experienced extremely reliable > performance from my LaCie drives. When multiple drives go bye-bye all at once, the first suspect is always power and the second suspect is always heat. First we'll deal with power, as that's more likely, given that we're talking three different enclosures (two external drives and an internal) so heat is unlikely unless your A/C went dead and you were running the system in 110 degree heat. Was everything hooked up to the same surge protector or UPS or on the same mains electric circuit? Did anything else go bye-bye at the same time? Was there an electrical storm? Did a distribution transformer (either a big object on the ground if you have underground power cables in your neighborhood, or a large cylinder on a pole if not) fry? Was there an electrical storm? In particular, was there an electrical storm with lots of lightening strikes close to your house? If one drive died first and sent an electrical pulse down the line and killed the other drives, I _seriously_ suspect either a mains power fault or lightening. In either case, I'd check out other items in the house, such as anything which has an electric motor. Especially fridges. Signatureemail to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com. [responding to my opening posting for this thread in which I detailed the concurrent loss of three drives, two on a firewire chain, and one internal] > When multiple drives go bye-bye all at once, the first suspect is always > power and the second suspect is always heat. First we'll deal with power, > as that's more likely, given that we're talking three different enclosures > (two external drives and an internal) so heat is unlikely unless your A/C > went dead and you were running the system in 110 degree heat. > Was everything hooked up to the same surge protector or UPS or on the same > mains electric circuit? The computer was connected to one Tripp Lite surge protector and the external drives to another. The surge protectors were connected to a wall outlet. There were other devices attached to the surge protectors and they were unaffected. > Did anything else go bye-bye at the same time? No. > Was there an electrical storm? No. > Did a distribution transformer (either a big object on the ground if you > have underground power cables in your neighborhood, or a large cylinder on > a pole if not) fry? No. > Was there an electrical storm? In particular, was there an electrical > storm with lots of lightening strikes close to your house? No. > If one drive died first and sent an electrical pulse down the line and > killed the other drives, I _seriously_ suspect either a mains power fault > or lightening. In either case, I'd check out other items in the house, > such as anything which has an electric motor. Especially fridges. I have yet to find anything else in the house that was affected. I am at the moment still convinced that the failure was within either the newly installed drive or the power brick that came with it. And I strongly believe what I have been told that a failure in a firewire chain can propagate to other members of the chain. Many thanks for taking the time to reply and offer suggestions. SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com > And I strongly believe what I have been told that a failure in a > firewire chain can propagate to other members of the chain. > Many thanks for taking the time to reply and offer suggestions. This must be an electronic failure (some sort of surge on the firewire line that fried something on each drives controller board. I've never seen anything like this with SCSI, FCAL (copper FCAL obviously) SAS or any other storage protocol. I guess this is the risk you run where the data medium also supports power. Signaturethepixelfreak > I am at the moment still convinced that the failure was within either the > newly installed drive or the power brick that came with it. And I strongly > believe what I have been told that a failure in a firewire chain can > propagate to other members of the chain. If the units were on different surge protectors, which still work, and which had other things attached to them which still work, it really looks bad for the La Cie. It's still electrical, but now it looks like it's the la Cie which caused it. Good luck. I have a feeling that you're going to need it. Signatureemail to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com. On 8/18/07 10:27 AM, in article 0001HW.C2EC883104CEB8AEF0509648@newsgroups.comcast.net, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not.to@but.see.sig> wrote: >> I am at the moment still convinced that the failure was within either the >> newly installed drive or the power brick that came with it. And I strongly [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > Good luck. I have a feeling that you're going to need it. I just went to a local user group (HAAUG.org) meeting today. The speaker was one of the writers of Alsoft's DiskWarrior. He indicated that, until the recent widespread use of un-cooled (no fan) 3.5 inch external drives, directory problems were responsible for 99% of Tech Support issues. Now, that people are leaving these large passive heat displaced drives on for long periods, if not all the time, that more than 15% of the issues are external FireWire and USB failure - due to overheating. The lubrication and magnetic properties change due to the excess heat. If it is too hot to touch, it needs active cooling. My LaCie 320GB Porsche drive is now turned off and will remain off except when backing up my main internal drive. This may not be the problem the OP is having, but is interesting information that I thought I would pass on to the gang. > The speaker was one of the writers of Alsoft's DiskWarrior. He indicated > that, until the recent widespread use of un-cooled (no fan) 3.5 inch > external drives, directory problems were responsible for 99% of Tech Support > issues. Were the hard drives the OP was using passively cooled? SignatureApply rot13 to this e-mail address before using it. JR >> The speaker was one of the writers of Alsoft's DiskWarrior. He indicated >> that, until the recent widespread use of un-cooled (no fan) 3.5 inch >> external drives, directory problems were responsible for 99% of Tech Support >> issues. > > Were the hard drives the OP was using passively cooled? At the time of the failure the three drives on the firewire 800 chain, all LaCie drives, were passively cooled as was the single LaCie drive connected via firewire 400. The internal drive was cooled by a fan. SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com >>> The speaker was one of the writers of Alsoft's DiskWarrior. He indicated >>> that, until the recent widespread use of un-cooled (no fan) 3.5 inch [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > LaCie drives, were passively cooled as was the single LaCie drive connected > via firewire 400. The internal drive was cooled by a fan. Oh dear... Personally, I don't think I would trust any hard drive enclosure that relies on just passive cooling! Drive runs hot - it's a fact of life! At any rate, I still don't see how a Firewire power issue would result in the internal ATA bus going South. SignatureApply rot13 to this e-mail address before using it. JR > The computer was connected to one Tripp Lite surge protector and the external > drives to another. The surge protectors were connected to a wall outlet. > There were other devices attached to the surge protectors and they were > unaffected. Which reminds me that a few months ago I learned the hard way that one of my wall sockets was wrongly wired: neutral was live, and live was neutral. Sadly, it was the socket from which I'd run my battery backup and surge protector for several items for several months (correctly loaded I believe), but with the first power failure the reponse knocked out my fast ethernet switch. And having replaced it, my power-off test immediately knocked that one out. I concluded that under wrong polarity the protection kit exacerbated the problem, and that I was mighty fortunate that nothing else was hit. I now have a plug-in tester for wall-sockets and extension leads. SignatureHylton >> The computer was connected to one Tripp Lite surge protector and the external >> drives to another. The surge protectors were connected to a wall outlet. [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > > I now have a plug-in tester for wall-sockets and extension leads. So called surge arrestors have little effect on anything that uses a switched mode power supply anyway. They can usually absorb small surges and spikes. Big surges and spikes (lightning strikes/near strikes) burn them out anyway, and take half the electronics in the house with them. > When multiple drives go bye-bye all at once, the first suspect is always > power... This was my thought as well though usually you get some other damaged electronics/chips/circuit boards concurrently. Direct physical damage (ie earthquake) aside, any other explanation seems extremely unlikely. Not all damaging power surges are immediately noticeable or detectable. And some can be generated by faulty power equipment external to the home. I don't understand, though, what would cause a hard drive device to generate an event that would damage other hard drives in the near vicinity. Perhaps someone else has some ideas on that. About the only thing I could think of was the transformers that come with many FW drives to convert AC to DC. With several external drives plus their transformers emitting possibly considerable induction if placed close together (or insufficiently shielded), might that be enough to cause such an event? I've heard it said that electrical damage from storms can accrue over time in electronics, depending on the device of course, doing small amounts of damage even long before the device finally fails. And, a storm need not be in the immediate vicinity to send a surge quite a distance up the line. I lost a modem like that once--- heard the static click-of-death in the computer before I heard the clap of thunder some distance off. And lightning is not the only culprit. Ionization alone can damage electronics (especially garage openers). When you smell ozone, beware! We live in an extremely lightning/storm prone area so, after $$$ of damaged electronics, we had lightning terminals installed as well as whole-house surge protectors at the main. Device based surge protectors are not a very good defense at all. We had one Lacie drive that failed only a few weeks after the warranty was up. Never again. I've had much better luck with my 3 OWC FW externals and a couple of Seagate internals. However, I do not keep my FWs running all the time since they are mainly for backup and since all these devices generate heat and use power. I also often let my second internal spin down (by "ejecting " it) and then remounting it as needed via the Terminal. I hope the OP posts the final outcome on this issue; I'd really be interested to know the cause of his multiple concurrent drive failures. > ...and the second suspect is always heat. First we'll deal with power, as > that's more likely, given that we're talking three different enclosures (two [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > lightening. In either case, I'd check out other items in the house, such as > anything which has an electric motor. Especially fridges. Madwen, I certainly appreciate your taking the time to make such a thorough and detailed addition to this thread. As things now stand and as I've indicated in my other postings in the thread I'm currently convinced that the failure of the new firewire 800 external drive, the other firewire 800 external drive, and the internal drive were all related to the failure of the new firewire 800 drive, a failure that occurred within minutes of that drive being installed. I have been told that the trouble would likely have been propagated via the shared power circuitry of the firewire connection and of the hosting computer. At the time of the failure there was no indication of any electrical problems affecting the room where the failure occurred. That room contains two computers and a myriad of peripherals including two printers, a scanner, two computer attached speaker systems. The other computer in the room was on at the time of the failure and none of its drives, the internal and two external firewire 400 drives, were affected. The power for all of the computing equipment is connected through surge protectors, none of which gave any indication of trouble. As of this time I have yet to receive a response from LaCie indicating what action they will take to address the problem. Again, many thanks! Jim SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com > Madwen, > > I certainly appreciate your taking the time to make such a thorough and > detailed addition to this thread. You're welcome but I'm afraid I was far more tangential than helpful. Having lost mucho dollars to electrical anomalies, I am very empathetic however. Absent any other event, the fact that your drives went belly-up immediately after turning on the new drive certainly seems indicative. I'm still thinking bad transformer on the new drive and it seems like that could be tested. I am also worried that, if my hypothesis is correct, you might have other damage that has not shown up as yet. > As things now stand and as I've indicated in my other postings in the thread > I'm currently convinced that the failure of the new firewire 800 external [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > Jim > In article <0001HW.C2EF1C160002B40EB019F94F@news.supernews.com>, > TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft@mac.com> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > could be tested. I am also worried that, if my hypothesis is correct, you > might have other damage that has not shown up as yet. Madwen, Many thanks for the "tangential" but indeed "helpful" reply! The MacBook Pro has been thoroughly checked by Apple and it appears that the only damage was to the internal drive, and that will be replaced by Apple in the next few days. The one failed external drive is being replaced under warranty and I guess I'm out of luck in regards to the older one for which warranty has expired. Jim SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com > The MacBook Pro has been thoroughly checked by Apple and it appears that the > only damage was to the internal drive, and that will be replaced by Apple in > the next few days. The one failed external drive is being replaced under > warranty and I guess I'm out of luck in regards to the older one for which > warranty has expired. If that's LaCie's official stance, there's nothing stopping you from popping the hood on that old drive and seeing if the hard drive within it is still functional. SignatureApply rot13 to this e-mail address before using it. JR >> The MacBook Pro has been thoroughly checked by Apple and it appears that the >> only damage was to the internal drive, and that will be replaced by Apple in [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > popping the hood on that old drive and seeing if the hard drive within > it is still functional. Opening the drive enclosure to check whether the failure is the disk or the controller is exactly what the service person at LaCie suggested. SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com >>> The MacBook Pro has been thoroughly checked by Apple and it appears that the >>> only damage was to the internal drive, and that will be replaced by Apple in [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Opening the drive enclosure to check whether the failure is the disk or the > controller is exactly what the service person at LaCie suggested. If you know what you are doing, and if the drive is the same as a newer working one, you can temporarily swap the drive controller boards on the drives to get data off the old disk.. Only do this as a last resort tho: >>>> The MacBook Pro has been thoroughly checked by Apple and it appears that >>>> the [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > Only do this as a last resort tho: Fortunately, I maintain a backup procedure where by swapping disks the absolute worst that can happen to me is to lose a single days work. I also have multiple backups that are made nigtly. When I experienced the disk failure one of those nightly backup disks survived, so there was absolutely no loss of data, The current downside is that until I replace the failed internal drive (any day now) I have to drag around an external firewire 400 dirve, and until I replace the two failed external drives (one to be replaced today) I don't have the level of security in my backup regime that I would like. SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com > My question is whether I should expect LaCie to absorb the cost of replacing > the two dead external drives, and the dead internal drive? The other damaged > external drive was also a LaCie. I would expect them to replace the other drives if it is determined that their drive was at fault. Determining that may not be easy. You mention the external enclosures won't power up, but are the actual hard drives inside of the enclosures still operational? SignatureApply rot13 to this e-mail address before using it. JR >> My question is whether I should expect LaCie to absorb the cost of replacing >> the two dead external drives, and the dead internal drive? The other damaged >> external drive was also a LaCie. > > I would expect them to replace the other drives if it is determined > that their drive was at fault. Determining that may not be easy. The three drive failures appear to have been concurrent. Immediately after receiving the failure message from SuperDuper! the drives were no longer accessible via Disk Utility. > You mention the external enclosures won't power up, but are the actual > hard drives inside of the enclosures still operational? Without breaking the warranty seal is there any way to tell if the drive is still operational? The two dead external drives came equipped with a blue status light that goes on when the drive is connected and which flickers when there is activity. That light now remains totally off. SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com >>> My question is whether I should expect LaCie to absorb the cost of replacing >>> the two dead external drives, and the dead internal drive? The other damaged [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > receiving the failure message from SuperDuper! the drives were no longer > accessible via Disk Utility. Yes, I think the trick will be getting LaCie to admit fault. I think you'll be somewhat at the whim of their technical support personnel and policies. : / Hopefully you find a nice contact there who is willing to admit fault and rectify the situation. It goes without saying it's in your best interests to remain calm, cool, and collected when you speak with them about the problem. >> You mention the external enclosures won't power up, but are the actual >> hard drives inside of the enclosures still operational? [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > status light that goes on when the drive is connected and which flickers when > there is activity. That light now remains totally off. Yeah, unfortunately, you'd have to take the drive out of the case to see if the drive is affected. My gut feeling is the drives may be okay, which is why I asked. LaCie's external enclosure power supplies have a horrid track record in my experience. SignatureApply rot13 to this e-mail address before using it. JR [in the context of my feeling that LaCie should take responsibility for the concurrent failure I experienced with three drives and which was detailed in the opening posting of this thread] > Yes, I think the trick will be getting LaCie to admit fault. I think > you'll be somewhat at the whim of their technical support personnel and > policies. : / Hopefully you find a nice contact there who is willing > to admit fault and rectify the situation. It goes without saying it's > in your best interests to remain calm, cool, and collected when you > speak with them about the problem. I have reported the problem on the LaCie support web page and have followed and reported back to them on each of the suggestions they have offered. At this time there has been no discussion regarding replacement of the three drives. And, methinks I have indeed been "calm, cool, and collected" in my communications with LaCie. SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com [commenting on how one could determine if the disk within a LaCie external drive was still functioning] > Yeah, unfortunately, you'd have to take the drive out of the case to > see if the drive is affected. My gut feeling is the drives may be okay, > which is why I asked. LaCie's external enclosure power supplies have a > horrid track record in my experience. Interestingly I still have some access to the failed internal drive. Yesterday I used Disk Utility to write all zeros to the drive. Following that I ran a SuperDuper! restore to the drive. The restoration appeared to have run without a problem but when I attempted to boot from the drive I got a kernel panic. Subsequent to that I booted from an external drive and just taking a look at the drive via Finder showed that it was in bad order. SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com > [commenting on how one could determine if the disk within a LaCie external > drive was still functioning] [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > kernel panic. Subsequent to that I booted from an external drive and just > taking a look at the drive via Finder showed that it was in bad order. Yeah, see I wonder if the Firewire interface is damaged due to the power problem, but the ATA hard drive inside the case is still okay. SignatureApply rot13 to this e-mail address before using it. JR >> [commenting on how one could determine if the disk within a LaCie external >> drive was still functioning] [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > Yeah, see I wonder if the Firewire interface is damaged due to the power > problem, but the ATA hard drive inside the case is still okay. At this time I can connect one external drive (which only supports firewire 400) and one external drive (which supports both firewire 400 and 800). These drives appear to be operating without problems. They pass Disk Utility verification. The internal drive shows up in Disk Utility but is clearly hosed. The other two external drives (which both support firewire 400 and 800) do not indicate connection when connected. I'm hesitant at this time to open these two external drives until things are settled with LaCie. As for the internal drive Apple has agreed to replace it under warranty. SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com > The internal drive shows up in Disk Utility but is clearly > hosed. (snip) > As for > the internal drive Apple has agreed to replace it under warranty. I can't see how the failure of the internal drive would be related to the Firewire drive failures. SignatureApply rot13 to this e-mail address before using it. JR >> The internal drive shows up in Disk Utility but is clearly >> hosed. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > I can't see how the failure of the internal drive would be related to > the Firewire drive failures. I have been told by someone who seems to be quite versed in such things that the internal drive could indeed have been affected by a failure propagated via firewire. All I can say is that the failure of the internal drive occurred at the same time as the failure of the two external drives. SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com >>> The internal drive shows up in Disk Utility but is clearly >>> hosed. [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > via firewire. All I can say is that the failure of the internal drive > occurred at the same time as the failure of the two external drives. How? The Firewire drives are connected to the Firewire bus. The internal drive, whether it be SATA or ATA, is connected to the ATA bus. Those are two separate busses. SignatureApply rot13 to this e-mail address before using it. JR >>>> The internal drive shows up in Disk Utility but is clearly >>>> hosed. [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > internal drive, whether it be SATA or ATA, is connected to the ATA bus. > Those are two separate busses. I'll see if I can get a clarification from my friend as to how the firewire failure could affect the internal drive. SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com > I'll see if I can get a clarification from my friend as to how the > firewire failure could affect the internal drive. Here's what he had to say..... Although only an Apple engineer could divine the true cause, I suspect that it was a power issue that caused the component failures. Although the DATA paths are different -- there are common POWER feeds. Anecdotally, compute the odds of THREE drives, of different manufacturers and ages, passing into the great beyond at the same time -- and NOT having a common factor. And the problematic power supplies on LaCie drives is documented. Also the logic board survives and seems happy in all other respects, i.e. with new proven drives on the same (failed) bus. If not, I'd suspect logic board. Sorry for the convoluted thought process... its just the way I reason thru quandries such as yours.... just my $.02 SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com > > I'll see if I can get a clarification from my friend as to how the > > firewire failure could affect the internal drive. [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > the convoluted thought process... its just the way I reason thru quandries > such as yours.... just my $.02 Just a simple question. did you try Disk Warrior? My internal HD seemed hosed some years ago and in the process of trying everything else, I used DW with the system booted from the DW disk. After a long period it was able to do what ever it does and voila everything was working normally again (and has continued to do so). Running 10.3.9 on a G5 iMac. Hope this is not too simple minded for this problem. SignatureEs ist nichts schrecklicher als eine tatige Unwissenheit. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [in the context of my failed internal drive which has been described in preceding postings in this thread] > Just a simple question. did you try Disk Warrior? My internal HD seemed > hosed some years ago and in the process of trying everything else, I used > DW with the system booted from the DW disk. After a long period it was > able to do what ever it does and voila everything was working normally > again (and has continued to do so). Running 10.3.9 on a G5 iMac. Thanks for joining the discussion! When I took the laptop to the Apple store they tried a disk rescue program, Drive Genius from ProSoft, and it didn't help. SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com > [in the context of my failed internal drive which has been described in > preceding postings in this thread] [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > When I took the laptop to the Apple store they tried a disk rescue program, > Drive Genius from ProSoft, and it didn't help. I don't think DW is a disk rescue program. Does Drive Genius do what Disk Warrior does to the directory. From What I have heard, a severe directory problem will make a computer un-bootable. Might be worth a shot. But, then, alas, like too many times in the past I could be very wrong. SignatureEs ist nichts schrecklicher als eine tatige Unwissenheit. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe > I don't think DW is a disk rescue program. Does Drive Genius do what > Disk Warrior does to the directory. From What I have heard, a severe [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > But, then, alas, like too many times in the past I could be very wrong. As things currently stand I'm booting off an external firewire 400 drive that wasn't affected by the multi-drive crash. I was fortunate at the time of the crash to have two backup clones of the failed internal drives, so I didn't suffer any data loss. Since the failure several attempts have been made to see if the internal drive could be restored, but these attempts have all failed. I'm hoping that Apple will be able to replace the internal drive early in the week. I'm still waiting to hear from LaCie regarding what replacements they will make in regards to the two failed external drives. SignatureJames Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com >> I'll see if I can get a clarification from my friend as to how the >> firewire failure could affect the internal drive. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > it was a power issue that caused the component failures. Although the DATA > paths are different -- there are common POWER feeds. It sounds like your friend is saying that a power problem in one of the Firewire drive enclosures could somehow effect the power supply of your computer or the power supply of the internal (S)ATA drive. But if he's talking about the Firewire bus power, then I don't see how that would be connected to the power lead of the internal ATA drive. Or, if he's talking about the wall outlet power lead to the external drive, I don't see the connection to the internal ATA drive either. SignatureApply rot13 to this e-mail address before using it. JR >>>>> The internal drive shows up in Disk Utility but is clearly >>>>> hosed. [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > I'll see if I can get a clarification from my friend as to how the firewire > failure could affect the internal drive. They don't call it 'firewire' for nothing. "Light the end of the Fire Wire, Sergeant" "Yussir" BANG! BANG! BANG! "All drives successfully detonated, Sir!" "Carry on Sergeant!" Just wait till you get a lightning strike on yer phone line..haha. "Hey, this bit still works" "Wonder how it missed THAT then?" > Just wait till you get a lightning strike on yer phone line..haha. > > "Hey, this bit still works" "Wonder how it missed THAT then?" Being from New Orleans, I can say I've been there, done that (multiple times), and bought massive UPSs to prevent it from happening again. SignatureApply rot13 to this e-mail address before using it. JR |
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