LaCie problems

[DARKMATTER]

After a tragic system crash, my external Lacie drive has performed erratically. Of course the warranty is expired, but how can I confirm if the drive itself is faulty or if perhaps the issue is within the G4 - like the USB bus?

Upon launching the Lacie at startup, audible "clicking" noise is heard, and then double-clicking any folder within the drive results in the "spinning colour wheel of death".

Any thoughts?

B

[baanes]

Try plugging it into a different computer and seeing what happens. Also see if you can verify it from disk utility.

hope this helps.

[kuene]

ive been getting a solid streams of complaint about lacie porche drives. they have been at the root of several probals across different daw setups. also, they crap out in normal circumstances all too often. i would in the future stay away from them, or if you can, return the drive.

[amergin]

I have 2 lacie 160gb drives and have had no reliability problems in two years or so of use. I would recommend a full reformatting of the drive as a first step (backing up everything beforehand obviously). I think then if you are still having problems then try on a different mac as baanes suggests. If it is anything other than perfect after this then I would return it or scrap it as a failed hard drive is no fun.

[resomedia]

I just had an internal WD drive go bad on my G5 and it acted the same as your Lacie. Below is the post I made. Fortunately it was my dedicated audio drive which I had backed up and I could easily replace (though I didn't realize it at the start!). It takes having one's cage rattled a bit to get back into the habit of maticulously taking precautions. Drives go bad, no matter what brand or make. It's not a matter of IF, but WHEN the drive will start to fail. Have at least two copies of EVERYTHING you value.

Perhaps there is something in the following post or on this forum that will be helpful.

http://www.macusersforum.com/index.php?showtopic=13924

BTW, I have now updated my copy of Restrospect and have automated back-ups going both daily and weekly for audio and system volumes.

[Saintmatthew]

I and the other writer in my band both had 160 porche drives. His •••• the bed after about a year. The main thing I would note is they are not spec'd as "portable" drives, despite being external. Carrying them around won't help their life expentancy. I use mine for backup only so it's not as much of a risk to me since the likely hood of it and my internal going at the same time are pretty rare, plus I copy my backups to a server drive at my work to assuage the paranoia factor.

[eixb]

After a tragic system crash, my external Lacie drive has performed erratically. Of course the warranty is expired, but how can I confirm if the drive itself is faulty or if perhaps the issue is within the G4 - like the USB bus?

Upon launching the Lacie at startup, audible "clicking" noise is heard, and then double-clicking any folder within the drive results in the "spinning colour wheel of death".

Any thoughts?

B

we've had a few of the newer lacie d2 & porsche drives fail here at the office with the exact same clicking issue. the spinning is the os waiting for the drive to spin up and respond...you can usually make it stop by unplugging the firewire cable. i've yet to get one of the misbehaving drives to come back to full functionality, although i did manage to get one to survive long enough to copy the data off it.

as for amergin's mention of owning two 160gb drives with no trouble, i can fully back that. i personally have two of the original fw400 160gb lacie d2 drives and have used them 24/7 for the last 3 or so years.

the only odd issue i've found is a strange reaction to gsm phones that are in use nearby (5-8 feet) but i'm fairly sure this was due to low grade firewire cabling. the drives would fall off the bus when a call came through, and then reappear once the call ended or the phone was moved out of the room. it's also possible the location was far from a tower, and required extra transmit power for the phone to stay in contact. i've since moved the system and i think may have changed the cabling...regardless, the problem no longer occurs and the drives are fine.