I want to pass on a helpful hint that I uncovered recently. My
external FireWire/USB hard drive was acting up a bit. Sometimes it
would not appear on the desktop, or would have problems writing or
accessing files. At first I thought the drive was dying, so I hooked
it up to the computer using its secondary USB connector, and all
worked just fine.
At this point I was thinking that perhaps my FireWire port on
either the computer or on the drive was going bad. I unplugged the
connector from the computer and then plugged and unplugged it a few
times before plugging it back in. I was thinking back to my old
audio engineering days and remembering how sometimes a connector
might lose good contact due to corrosion or dirt. As it turned out,
that is what the problem was. All works just fine once again.
As in my past audio experience, it is useful to occasionally
unplug and re-plug connectors in order to renew good connections,
especially with very low current protocols such as USB or FireWire,
and when the connections are not particularly tight in the first
place because the connector is designed to be easy to plug and unplug.
Steve
*************************************************************************
** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy **
** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ **
*************************************************************************
