Firewire Harddisk Problems on Clevo Notebook and WIndows XP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Erwin R. Leijen
  • Start date Start date
E

Erwin R. Leijen

Good evening all,

Hopefully somebody can help me with the following problem:

The firewire harddisk doesn't work properly on my Clevo 5600D notebook.
Every now and then the harddisk is not recognized in Windows XP. And
when it is recognized it may happen that the drive unexpectedly
"disconnects" resulting in delayed write failures.

Also the drive is very slow. Not according to SiSoft Sandra's File
System Benchmark, which gives a respectable score of 17126kB/s (at least
I think that is respectable :) ), and also copying files to and from the
Firewire drive using Windows Explorer (or any other file manager) is
nice and quick.

But when I try to burn files from the Firewire harddisk onto a CD (using
Nero 5.5 and 6) somehow the data transfer almost grinds to a halt during
the burning process (causing Nero's write buffer to empty).
I use virtual CD's (Virtual CD 4.5 and 5). These virtual CD's are also
stored on the Firewire harddisk. When I want to install a program from
these virtual CD's it takes ages (while on my Desktop computer, the
Virtual CD's - which are stored on a "normal IDE harddisk" - are very
quick). Also trying to view a virtual Video DVD is impossible because
every now and then the videostream pauses for a while.

I have tried both the "Optimize for quick removal" and "Optimize for
performance" options for the Firewire drive in the hardware settings of
Windows XP. Both give the same disconnecting and performance problems
that I described above.

Does anybody else have the same problem. Can you maybe help me find a
solution?

Let me tell you a bit more about the hard and software I use:

Notebook: Clevo 5600D (Pentium 4 2.8GHz, 1GB ram, ATI Radeon 9000 video
64MB)
IE1394 Interface in computer: Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394
Host Controller
IE1394 Harddisk: 250GB in a Miglia Technology Mediabank MTR (Firewire
connections: 6Pins on Miglia, 4Pins on Notebook)
Windows XP Professional SP1
OHCI1394 drive version 5.1.2600.1106

Many thanks,

Erwin
 
I have a Clevo 2700T (rebadged Excel)
I have a firewire ADS Pyro external enclosure (any of 3 hard disks) and a
Datafab MD2-FW-USB 2.5 inch enclosure and a firewire DV-8 Sony camera.
Also have 2 desktop Pc's, one with a pci firewire card (Texas chipset) and
the MB port on my other machine (MSI KT4 ultra).

I have found similar problems as you have with all my pc's and especially
with daisy-chaining the camera through the ADS drive.
Always the problem is solved by using the cable that came with the Datafab
drive.
That cable is fully screened, clear coated and has a lump of ferrite around
it at one end.
I have to put the ferrite at the pc end or the system hangs eventually.
The other cables are "generic" black plastic-coated things that came with
the ADS unit.
I also got a short 8 inch cable with something. That also doesn't work
unless I have that clear screened one at the pc end.

FYI. I can't see the use of a laptop with firewire external drive if there
is no power feed from the pc.
All internal PCI cards have feed for external accessories (like 2.5inch
drives that draw 2 watts) but my laptop didn't.
Like I keep saying to the agents "where can I find a power point for the
plugpack on the train or at the beach?????"
So I investigated the laptop. With a lot of work I eventually found that a
diode had deliberately been omitted near the connector.
On my laptop it's just a case of flipping the keyboard out and removing the
hard disk and pushing aside the plastic sheet covering the board and
carefully soldering a diode to the pads.
Now my external drive needs no power pack... Yes...
Ray Merrick
 
Good evening all,

Hopefully somebody can help me with the following problem:

The firewire harddisk doesn't work properly on my Clevo 5600D notebook.
Every now and then the harddisk is not recognized in Windows XP. And
when it is recognized it may happen that the drive unexpectedly
"disconnects" resulting in delayed write failures.

Also the drive is very slow. Not according to SiSoft Sandra's File
System Benchmark, which gives a respectable score of 17126kB/s (at least
I think that is respectable :) ), and also copying files to and from the
Firewire drive using Windows Explorer (or any other file manager) is
nice and quick.

But when I try to burn files from the Firewire harddisk onto a CD (using
Nero 5.5 and 6) somehow the data transfer almost grinds to a halt during
the burning process (causing Nero's write buffer to empty).
I use virtual CD's (Virtual CD 4.5 and 5). These virtual CD's are also
stored on the Firewire harddisk. When I want to install a program from
these virtual CD's it takes ages (while on my Desktop computer, the
Virtual CD's - which are stored on a "normal IDE harddisk" - are very
quick). Also trying to view a virtual Video DVD is impossible because
every now and then the videostream pauses for a while.

I have tried both the "Optimize for quick removal" and "Optimize for
performance" options for the Firewire drive in the hardware settings of
Windows XP. Both give the same disconnecting and performance problems
that I described above.

Does anybody else have the same problem. Can you maybe help me find a
solution?

Let me tell you a bit more about the hard and software I use:

Notebook: Clevo 5600D (Pentium 4 2.8GHz, 1GB ram, ATI Radeon 9000 video
64MB)
IE1394 Interface in computer: Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394
Host Controller
IE1394 Harddisk: 250GB in a Miglia Technology Mediabank MTR (Firewire
connections: 6Pins on Miglia, 4Pins on Notebook)
Windows XP Professional SP1
OHCI1394 drive version 5.1.2600.1106

Many thanks,

Erwin
Click to expand...
I have experienced similar problems with my external FireWire drive and
have also tried the Windows optimization methods without success.
Eventually I moved all the active programs from the FireWire drive to a
partition on one of my fixed hard drives and now use the FireWire drive
for storage purposes only.
This seems to have remedied the problem to a certain extent although
occasionally the problem re-occurs (I probably have 1 or 2 programs
still running from the drive that I haven't yet moved).
If you look in Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Event Viewer>System
Log you will probably find several references to a 'disk' warning (Event
ID 51) and an sbp2port error (Event ID 9) both of which, I believe
relate to the FireWire drive. If you 'right' click on the message and
select 'Properties' there is a brief description of the problem. There
is also a link to the Microsoft Support Center but having followed the
links there is no relevant information currently available to resolve
either problem.
So, at the moment I would suggest running all programs from a fixed hard
drive and use the FireWire drive for storage only

Jim
 
Erwin R. said:
Every now and then the harddisk is not recognized in Windows XP. And
when it is recognized it may happen that the drive unexpectedly
"disconnects" resulting in delayed write failures.
Click to expand...

I wasted three days trying to solve this. Turns out that Windoze is way
more finicky about firewire cables than Macs are. Many are defective
brand new right out of the box.

Hopefully enough people will start returning them to force the
manufacturers to get their act together.
 
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