On May 6, 2011, at 10:54 PM, admin wrote:
WD ATA drive won't mount on desktop, Disk Utility and Data Rescue (DEMO) can't recognize. DiskWarrior can recognize but chokes on re- build attempt. Disk does spin up fine. Have in external Firewire/ USB 2 case with Single/Master pinning. Anything else? Cable select make any difference? Thanks.
Some external Firewire/USB 2.0 cases have chipsets that are problematic with Mac OS X. Knowing the exact make and model of the enclosure; or the PID & VID (from System Profiler) of the Firewire & USB 2.0 bridge chipsets might lead to a firmware update that could possibly solve your issue, but the chances of this is very low. Most of the bad Firewire chipsets aren't fixable with firmware. The problematic USB 2.0 chipsets have upgrades, but the upgrades require Windows.
I would try DiskWarrior under both Firewire and USB 2.0 to see if it makes a difference. Firewire is generally MUCH better than USB 2.0, but certain Firewire chipsets such as those from Genesys Logic just will not work with OS X. Likewise, there are certain USB 2.0 chipsets that have early firmware versions that are very flakey in OS X, and can sometimes be improved to achieve functionality. There may even be a firmware update for the HD itself, but these are very rare and the chances are unlikely. You may have a bad drive that's unsalvageable. If you can attach the drive to an ATA bus rather than the external enclosure you can get a S.M.A.R.T. report on the HD status using something like SMARTReporter. In my experience any drive that fails a SMART test is bad, but some drives that pass a SMART test are also bad. Bad is bad, but good isn't necessarily good.
-- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
