Firewire drive 'dismounting'

[unid]

Hello folks,

I have an issue i'm hoping someone can help with.

iMac 24" 2.93 4850 connected to Iomega ultramax 640Gb external HDD via Firewire 800, this is in turn daisy chained to an epson r1800 printer via firewire 400.

Issue is that my drive either disconnects or becomes unresponsive after a short while (around 20mins).

I have tried disonnecting the printer to see if that is causing the problem but the 'dismounting' still occurs when there is nothing else connected!

I have done all the logical searching for solutions i can think of, no joy, so here i am at the trusty MR resource.

Thanks in advance for any light shed.

 

[SaSaSushi]

It could be a bad cable. Do you have another you can try for a test? Is this something that just started occurring? Were you using the drive before with no problems? It could also just be a failing controller in the Iomega enclosure.

 

[synagence]

I have the same iMac as OP and have similar issues also with iomega one...

exchanged for seagate and its less trouble but still happens when coming out of sleep usually

 

[unid]

Thanks SaSaSushi,

I have tried a Fire800>400 Cable that was daisy-chained to the printer, the drive works ok with this. I have also tested the F800 cable on other devices and it checks out ok.

I am now wondering if it is the length of the F800 cable (4.5 Metres) causing the problem, Iomega quote the maximum length at 15' which is slightly more than my cable.

If no other answers arise here, I think i will buy a shorter cable in the hope that solves it.

 

[unid]

So after further testing and use with both firewire 400 and USB2 the issues still arise, debunking my idea that it was confined to firewire 800.
So now I guess it is safe to assume that the problem is with the HDD and may indeed be a failing controller.

Disk Utility brought up no problems, is there another free utility that could verify if the controller is faulty?

 

[zmttoxics]

Sounds like that IOMega drive bridge controller is bad. I would get a new external enclosure and move the disk.

 

[unid]

I guess that's an option, but i think I'll just take it back to the shop, after I've transferred everything to a new drive, perhaps I'll get a network drive this time.

 

[vw1300]

Don't know if this will help, but 2 years ago my LaCie external HDD would "disappear" sometimes when I tried to read/write. Turned out the power supply was starting to get flaky. I had another power supply on hand, swapped it out, and the problem went away.

 

[Durandal549]

I had a WD FW800-400 that would drop about once a day. My issue was also power related. I think it was power fluctuations that freaked the power brick out. When I plugged the drive into the battery backup the issue went away.

 

[unid]

Thanks for that, but I don't think it's the same issue in my case.

Furthermore I noticed last night that if the drive is being constantly called upon for data (e.g having my itunes folder on the drive and music constantly playing) it doesn't 'drop out' at all.