Firewire Drives and Boot Camp

[Mr. DG]

Hi, I'm running Windows XP under boot camp, and so far so good. I have a 40 GB external USB drive formatted in HFS+ which i can read in both OSX and Windows (using MacDrive).

I also have a 320GB WD MyBook Premium which I connect via Firewire and formatted in HFS+. This works fine in OSX, but Windows doesn't recognise it at all. I've installed the firewire drivers from the WD website but to no avail. Any suggestions? I don't want to connect it via USB because I specifically paid extra for the FW version so that i could work with audio in Windows.

 

[sycho]

Windows doesn't natively handle HFS. Format as FAT32 if you want Read/Write in both OSes.

 

[Mr. DG]

Its not the formatting thats the problem though - I'm using Macdrive which reads my 40GB HFS-formatted USB Drive.

 

[Edge100]

As mentioned, use MacDrive. Problem solved.

 

[Mr. DG]

As mentioned, use MacDrive. Problem solved.

hmmm, i'm already using macdrive... perhaps it doesnt read FW drives, just USB... I'll have to double-check the user guide.

 

[crazzyeddie]

Wow. Worst comments ever. Read the OP you guys...

Windows not reading the Firewire drive doesn't make any sense. You shouldn't need a Firewire driver or anything. Does the USB port on the WD work (even though you don't want to use it)?

Does the drive show up in the device manager?

 

[Mr. DG]

I'll check device manager when I get home, was busy all last night so didnt have a chance to have a look.

 

[BornAgainMac]

Possible Solution

Firewire is supported (at least according to their website for version 6). On their support site, they mention this:

http://www.mediafour.com/

STEP 1

A common cause is failed connectivity on your Windows system (with FireWire or USB).

Please confirm that the drive is visible in the "Disk Management" console in Windows XP/2000/2003 Server. To access Disk Management:

Right-click on My Computer
Click Manage
Select Disk Management
Use the console on the right portion of the Window to check for the presence of the drive

If your drive is present in "Disk Management" make note of the drive number and proceed to Step 3.

If the drive is not present, please contact the drive vendor for assistance getting your drive recognized as a hardware device on your system. Mediafour Technical Support is not able to troubleshoot hardware, driver, or connectivity problems.


STEP 2
Another possible cause is file system corruption. To repair such corruption, please try the following solutions:

- Take the drive to a Macintosh; the only HFS/HFS+ file system repair utilities are written for the Mac OS.

- First, try using the built-in tools of the operating system to repair the disk (Disk First Aid in Mac OS 9, Disk Utility in Mac OS X).

- Second, if the corruption is not repairable by the aforementioned utilities consider "Disk Warrior" or "Norton Disk Doctor". Both are quality, 3rd-party disk repair utilities that may be able to recover the damage file system and the data within.


STEP 3

Please create a technical support ticket with a detailed problem description and information on your computer's configuration.