no boot, disappearing external drive

[jmlilly]

Hello,

This is an excellent product. I use it often and it saves me a lot of hassle.

I ran into the following problem while trying to setup a backup scheme for a set of new computers. I have 3 new ibooks, and wanted to make bootable backups for them and several old world machines (running tiger) on a big 250 external drive with multiple (7) partitions. The hard drive is a Seagate Barracuda in an Ultra brand ATA 133 enclosure.

First problem: after making a backup copy of one of the new computers to its own partition on the external hard drive, everything looked great but I could not boot. Gray screen. I did this by choosing startup disk before shutdown.

Second problem: I then tried to boot holding down option, and that also failed. So I unplugged the drive or powered down (not exactly sure which) and now the external drive DOES NOT APPEAR when plugged into any of my laptops. Have tried powering down drive, computer, unplugging, replugging, and switching firewire cable for USB cable. It's not showing up.

Luckily since I am just setting things up, there is no risk of losing data.

If anyone has ideas about this I would be very appreciative. Does the scheme I descibed --- using Super Duper to make bootable copies of multiple machines on their own partitions of a single external firewire drive --- make sense in the abstract? Is any of my hardware known to be incompatible?

Thanks very much for your help,
Jonathan

[dnanian]

It's just fine to make bootable copies to separate partitions. But, I honestly don't know much about Old World machines: they often have their own special boot requirements, restrictions on where the OS can be, and the like... and aren't officially supported for Tiger.

It certainly sounds like the drive is zorched, though. "Ultra" brand ATA? Is it FireWire? Oxford Bridge?

[jmlilly]

Okay I am glad it should work in priciple. Well the problem happened on when trying to boot a copy of one of the new ibooks, but I'll keep in mind that the old world machines might not work.

Drive enclosure is Firewire, yes. Don't know about the bridge, though --- not in specs. Does have 80 wire ribbon.

The one funny thing is that the enclosure is ATA 133 and the drive is ATA 100. The enclosure company swore to me that this was fine but... I don't know enough to decide.

Any idea on why the boot didn't take originally? I can swap out into a Macally enclosure to try to isolate the problem.... can I make the drive come back? Is zorchedness permanent?

Originally Posted by dnanian

It's just fine to make bootable copies to separate partitions. But, I honestly don't know much about Old World machines: they often have their own special boot requirements, restrictions on where the OS can be, and the like... and aren't officially supported for Tiger.

It certainly sounds like the drive is zorched, though. "Ultra" brand ATA? Is it FireWire? Oxford Bridge?

[dnanian]

I don't think a Macally supports boot either, unfortunately. You can pick up an Adaptec FireWire case at BestBuy for cheap, and it has an Oxford bridge and *does* work...

I really don't know if the drive'll come back. Probably, if it's just the case that's dead.

[jmlilly]

Hello,

I just wanted to follow up by saying that I found a solution to the missing drive problem. I plugged the FireWire drive into a Windows computer, and was able to see it and began formatting it. I then stopped formatting it, ejected it, plugged it into my Macintosh where it was recognized as a non-formatted drive. After formatting and verifying everything looks good again.

I have bought an Adaptec enclosure, thank you for that advice.

Jonathan

[dnanian]

Ah, good. I'm glad you were able to get it to reset, Jonathan.