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Apple Addresses Panther Firewire Issues

Apple posted a response to concerns about file corruption on External Firewire Drives.



    Apple has identified an issue with external FireWire hard drives using the Oxford 922 bridge chip-set with firmware version 1.02 that can result in the loss of data stored on the disk drive. Apple is working with Oxford Semiconductor and affected drive manufacturers to resolve this issue which resides in the Oxford 922 chip-set.

    In the interim, Apple recommends that you do not use these drives. To stop using the drive, you should unmount or eject the disk drive before doing anything else. Please check this web page for further updates.



Both Firewire 800 and 400 drives are reported to have been affected by user reports.

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108 months ago
Hmm... good to see Apple finally taking action on this, but I wonder if it's as simple as just Oxford 922 controllers--there've been a lot of reports from people using FW400, and unless someone is confused or some vendors are putting Oxford 922 controllers in FW400 drives, it looks an awful lot like there's more to the problem.

Or, maybe, it's more than one problem, but each has the same symptom--munged FW drive after restart.
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108 months ago
So I wonder if it's just a driver that needs to be re-coded or what? Because I hate to have bought fw800 ex-drive and not being able to use it.
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108 months ago
Good to hear that Apple have recongised the problems.

HOWEVER, looking through the Apple discussion boards, ppl have also had FW400 drives trashed.

Hope Apple soon releases a statement about those.
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108 months ago
Wow- glad I read that
Thanks MR!

I was just about to buy 4 FW800 enclosures.

Anybody know ehre to get some good SATA stuff? (raid card, drives, enclosures, cables)
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108 months ago
Wow, this by far the harshest Panther story to date. Trashing data is no small issue.
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108 months ago
Well this is F-ing super.

So does this mean they will do something about my 200 GB of data that I lost? Any recomendations of how I can get my data back?
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108 months ago
Try mounting your FW drive on another version of MAC OS - 8,9,10 etc.

There have been some reports that other versions can read the disk, but Panther cannot.

Drive X is also popular for recovering trashed FW disks.

If you can't retrieve your data, then your stuffed. You could try phoning Apple for support to see what else they suggest.
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108 months ago
Why are there 6 positive votes? This is a major issue that could, and most likely has, cause data loss.
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108 months ago

Originally posted by Stella
Try mounting your FW drive on another version of MAC OS - 8,9,10 etc.

There have been some reports that other versions can read the disk, but Panther cannot.

Drive X is also popular for recovering trashed FW disks.

If you can't retrieve your data, then your stuffed. You could try phoning Apple for support to see what else they suggest.


I've tried all of those things.

I will make a trip to the Apple Store in Tampa this weekend. Hopefully they will help me.

And yeah, what on earth is positive about this?
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108 months ago
Lacie has a fix, but you need to boot up in 9. which sounds smart anyway.
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