[MacTUG] Problem: formatting a drive with 10.5.2 disk utility

[Steve Hellyer]

Hi Marlon,

Is the white plastic iMac Intel or PowerPC G5?

What happen if you try formatting using GUID partition mapping. In  
Disk Util and partitions select Option button to select GUID partition  
mapping.  Do use this if you want to use this drive to boot PowerPC.

Make sure the drive has jumper set to be master. The cable should tell  
it this but if it can't it can cause problems.

Check to see if a firmware update is available for the Firewire  
drive.  The bridge chip does all the work converting 1394 Block  
communication to ATA.

Two related stories...
I had purchased a cheap USB case to put a 250 GB drive for a Intel Mac  
Mini at my house.  I had terrible problems with it and when I put the  
drive into a case with Firewire (Oxford) chip all went well.  So much  
for the cheap USB case. Plus not the drive is way faster on firewire.

Recently friend of mine with Current 20" iMac had problem with his  
time machine backup to a Lacie drive.   He downloaded the silverlining  
software from Lacie and updated the firmware fixed all his issues.

The firewire chip in the "Aluminum iMac" is different (more modern)  
that white plastic iMac.

Steve

On 28-Mar-08, at 11:29 AM, Marlon A. Griffith wrote:
> Systems
> -------
>
> - 20 " aluminum iMac
> - 4 GB of ram
> - 10.5.2
>
> - an external 80 GB ide hdd in a firewire case
>
> - 20 " white plastic iMac
> - 2 GB of ram
> - 10.4.10
>
> System Profiler of hdd in 10.5.2
> --------------------------------
>
> FireWire Bus:
>
>  Maximum Speed:    Up to 800 Mb/sec
>
> 00JJC0:
>
>  Manufacturer:    Initio
>  Model:    0x340
>  GUID:    0x10100340000000
>  Maximum Speed:    Up to 400 Mb/sec
>  Connection Speed:    Up to 400 Mb/sec
>  Sub-units:
> 00JJC0 Unit:
>  Unit Software Version:    0x10483
>  Unit Spec ID:    0x609E
>  Firmware Revision:    0x443
>  Product Revision Level:    4.43
>  Sub-units:
> 00JJC0 SBP-LUN:
>  Capacity:    74.53 GB
>  Removable Media:    Yes
>  BSD Name:    disk1
>  Mac OS 9 Drivers:    No
>  Partition Map Type:    APM (Apple Partition Map)
>  S.M.A.R.T. status:    Not Supported
>  Volumes:
> ecHDbk:
>  Capacity:    37.14 GB
>  Available:    37.1 GB
>  Writable:    Yes
>  File System:    HFS+
>  BSD Name:    disk1s3
>  Mount Point:    /Volumes/ecHDbk
> imgBk:
>  Capacity:    37.14 GB
>  Available:    37.1 GB
>  Writable:    Yes
>  File System:    HFS+
>  BSD Name:    disk1s5
>  Mount Point:    /Volumes/imgBk
>
>
> Situation
> ----------
>
> When I format the hdd on the plastic iMac, it works.
>
> When I format the hdd on the aluminum iMac, it errors out, saying  
> that the erase failed.
>
> Note: the versions of disk utility are obviously different.
>
>
> Any idea why it fails in 10.5.2?
>
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> -- 
> Make it a great day!
> Marlon A. Griffith
> Engineering Computing
> University of Waterloo
> 519-885-1211 x38146
> m3griffi at engmail.uwaterloo.ca
>
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