Vista and external hard disks

P

Pete

I've been running my Vista machine with a Seagate hard disk. Works fine in
paralell. I tried to hook it up with Firewire on both ends and Vista never
recognized the HD. Is there something I am doing wrong?
Tks. -Pete
 
P

Pete

It says NOTHING since it is not joined under Firewire. Only under USB does
it work. No recognition at all. :-(
 
P

Pete

I had high hopes from that idea, but 1394 is listed as Enabled.
The cable is NEW btw. So, what next? I'd hate to go back to USB if it's
firewire capable.
 
A

Adam Albright

I've been running my Vista machine with a Seagate hard disk. Works fine in
paralell. I tried to hook it up with Firewire on both ends and Vista never
recognized the HD. Is there something I am doing wrong?
Tks. -Pete
Click to expand...

Windows always has had trouble seeing some firewire devices. If it is
an external drive have it turned off while you're booting. then turn
the drive on. If still no go, try pulling off and putting back the
data cable. If Windows "sees" it it should give some kind of audible
clue and also pop up a window indicating it has found it. Depending on
make/model this may happen only the first time or every time. Still
no go, check your BIOS settings and the manual for the drive to see if
you need to pull/add/change some jumper. Also look in Device Manager
from the Control Panel and see if Windows is nagging about something.
 
C

C.B.

Pete said:
I've been running my Vista machine with a Seagate hard disk. Works fine in
paralell. I tried to hook it up with Firewire on both ends and Vista never
recognized the HD. Is there something I am doing wrong?
Tks. -Pete
Click to expand...

I use two WD external drives on Vista Ultimate and they are both
connected via Firewire. However, before I could utilize the Firewire
connections I had to connect it via USB first so as to install the drivers.
This was done according to the directions included with the drives.

C.B.
 
P

Pete

C.B. said:
I use two WD external drives on Vista Ultimate and they are both
connected via Firewire. However, before I could utilize the Firewire
connections I had to connect it via USB first so as to install the
drivers. This was done according to the directions included with the
drives.

C.B.
Click to expand...
This has no drivers. Under usb it was strictly plug and play.
 
P

Pete

No go. Nothing I do makes the device visible. It's invisible, no sounds,
nothing.
It doesn't work as firewire in our XP machine either.
USB is no problem however!
I don't get it. Very frustrating.
-Pete
 
A

Adam Albright

No go. Nothing I do makes the device visible. It's invisible, no sounds,
nothing.
It doesn't work as firewire in our XP machine either.
USB is no problem however!
I don't get it. Very frustrating.
Click to expand...

What's showing under Device Manager?

Look carefully for a line that reads something like this:

IEEE 1394 Bus Host Controllers

Is there any yellow warning or red flag?

If there is no such line and a driver listed under it, then you don't
have any firewire controller configured. It should be part of any
prebuild box automatically, but if you built you own you might have to
install the driver from the CD/DVD that came with the motherboard.

Also when you first connect any firewire device Windows should give a
audible indication and pop a windows saying it found new hardware. If
none of that happens something isn't set up correctly.

Is this a newer SATA drive by any chance that also supports USB and/or
firewire?

Vista can have trouble with those. If your motherboard has a lot of
support for multiple SATA drives it may not see them if you make a
hardware change as simple as trying to switch from USB to firewire.

One fix that might work assuming the problem drive isn't your root
drive is yank all your drives but the boot drive, reboot, then slowly
add the new drives one at a time and see if Vista wakes up to being
able to see them after. I had to do that building this box.

This is one of those problems that's hard to get a handle on just
exchanging posts in a newsgroup.

Assuming you don't have BOTH USB and firewire on this drive connected
at the same time. Could be the firewire port on the drive is damaged.
It one of those things that's a long process of trial and error.
 
P

Pete

The outside just says "Seagate." The number on the outside is "9y7867-560."
I bought it a year or two ago. I did not build it myself. Proably got it at
Costco! Works great USB. But for the first time I tried the firewire port,
and it gives me nothing. Nothing anywhere. No "x" in the Device Manager, no
sound, no reaction at all that it even exists.
 
P

Pete

It is a purchased Seagate 9y7867-560, with USB or Firewire option.
Nothing shows up in the Device Manager. Not even an error flag.
There is no sound when I plug it in. Nothing.
Firewire didn't work on my XP machine either. Same result.
Shit!
 
P

Pete

Frank said:
It may require an external power source for firewire use.
Frank
Click to expand...

It is pretty big, and must use external power no matter what.
Could be that the device is just defective.
I'm out of ideas. You?
-Pete
 
P

Patrick Keenan

Pete said:
I've been running my Vista machine with a Seagate hard disk. Works fine in
paralell. I tried to hook it up with Firewire on both ends and Vista never
recognized the HD. Is there something I am doing wrong?
Tks. -Pete
Click to expand...

Was all the hardware powered off when you connected the firewire cable? If
not, there's a good possibility that the ports are dead.

Firewire is *supposed* to support hot-plugging, but in reality doing this is
often lethal to the chips that form the firewire ports. Power everything
off, connect it, power on the peripheral devices, then the PC.

It appears from this post and your subsequent replies that the Firewire
portion of the case circuitry is simply non-functional.

You have also provided power to the device, haven't you? Don't expect it
to be carried over the FW cable, not the amount a hard disk needs.

HTH
-pk
 
A

Adam Albright

It may require an external power source for firewire use.
Frank
Click to expand...

Oh wow, thanks for adding something obvious Frank. An external drive
may need a external power source. I'm sure nobody thought of that.
Thanks for straining your pea sized brain to offer that.
 
A

Adam Albright

It is a purchased Seagate 9y7867-560, with USB or Firewire option.
Nothing shows up in the Device Manager. Not even an error flag.
There is no sound when I plug it in. Nothing.
Firewire didn't work on my XP machine either. Same result.
Shit!
Click to expand...

Maybe its time somebody asked WHY you want to switch the drive to
Firewire. If it works using USB and you have USB 2.0 and not the older
USB 1.0 the rated file transfer speed is 480 mbps while Firewire is
rated at 400 mbps. So it actually would run slower under Firewire.
 

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