FIREWIRE HELP! Cannot Mount Firewire HD on XP

[Peter007]

Bought an Actiontech Firewire Card for my computer.
Recognized by WindowXP, device manager shows IEEE 1394 Bus Host Controller installed
with a name "OHCI Compliant IEEE 1934 Host Controller"

So far so good. At least I've know the card works, no IRQ conflicts.

WinXP also detect the Firewire as a NETWORK DEVICE, and show 1394 Connection under
my Network neighborhood, with an option to set IP Address.

The trouble is when I attach my external Firewire/USB HD. It refuse to MOUNT the drives.
If I removes the Firewire cable, and reattach the USB cables, I see the external HD,
If I attached the firewire cable, and removed the USB cables, I don't the external HD????

Anyone with Firewire experience?

 

[Cheetah8799]

Do you have the drive partitioned correctly? Make sure you don't have any FAT32 partitions greater than 32gb. I've tried that with my USB2.0 external enclosure and 120gb drive and it wouldn't come up at all in Windows XP.

 

[Peter007]

The HD has 2 partition:

1. Fat32 in 1G capacity
2. NTFS in 27.55 Capacity

Both partition are easily recognized by USB connection, but Firewire connection
don't show any partition???

Is this a Firewire thing? What good is Firewire Network Connection if it cannot even recognized a simple HD Partition

 

[InlineFive]

When the drive is plugged in have you tried running compmgmt.msc and initializing the disk under Disk Management? I had to do this and format my USB 2.0 hard drive in order for it to work.

-Por

 

[BDawg]

When the disk is plugged up via firewire, does anything show up in disk management?

 

[gaidin123]

Open up disk management. If the partition is a dynamic NTFS one, then the disk management will make you import the "foreign" disks before it will automount in My Computer.

Gaidin

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: gaidin123
Open up disk management. If the partition is a dynamic NTFS one, then the disk management will make you import the "foreign" disks before it will automount in My Computer.

Gaidin

You cant make external USB/Firewire drives dynamic, windows doesnt support it.

But yes please check in disk management and report back what you see.

-Erik

 

[Peter007]

When the disk is plugged up via firewire, does anything show up in disk management?

No, nothing under the diskmanagement!. As if there was nothing plug in.

If the partition is a dynamic NTFS one, then the disk management will make you import the "foreign" disks before it will automount in My Computer.

I search under the Disk Management's menu, I didn't see any option for "importing the foreign disk".
I did however, use the [RESCAN DISKS] OPTION under the [ACTION] menu, however, the disk management still didn't see any partition.

Here is my Deduction so far, let me know if you're opinion:

#1 - I'm assuming the Firewire Card does work since it is recognized under Device Manager, and WinXP also detect
a new Networking Device and proceed to install Firewire as a Network Connection.

#2 - The External HD works because I was able to mount both parition under External Drive's USB connection.

My deduction are:

(1) perhaps Firewire doesn't recognized HD that is already formated under 2 sepeate partition. It only recognized 1 big partition.
(2) perhaps Firewire doesn't recognized HD that has (1) partition under FAT32, and the other partition under NTFS
(3) perhaps a Special Driver is needed just to mount a Firewire HD???

 

[Peter007]

Apparently, its not the Driver.

Here is the External 3.5 Case that I used, see DataFab MD3A-FW USB & Firewire

According to this page no additional driver is needed for winXP

The HD is a Maxtor 30G, VL40

-------------------------
Any clue? Does anyone here have Firewire HD?
already, for all the trouble I'm going through with mounting a Firewire,
I can easily see why USB succeeded over Firewire.

 

[CplHicks]

When you turn on your hard drive using firewire does windows make any sound or indication that something's been connected? Try checking in "Device Manager" to see if anything is connected to your firewire port, choose to view devices by connection. I have an external firewire enclosure and I've never had problems using a 3.5" hard drive (only one partition, but I'd be shocked if it made a difference) and a CD-RW drive.

Have you connected anything else to your firewire port? Maybe the card itself works ok but the connection is faulty? Perhaps also you bought a bad cable with which to connect the drive, it's a stretch but a possibility.

PS - Good luck with your troubleshooting, don't forget to search google for problems with your firewire card.

 

[Peter007]

I'd managed to make some progress:

I removed the maxtor HD, and reset the jumper to MASTER from the default CABLE SELECT

Now under the DEVICE MANAGER, it sees 2 additional stuff:

1. SBP2 IEEE 1394 Devices - working
2. [disk drives] it sees a new "oxford IDE device LUN 0 IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device"

However, I still don't see any of my HD volume? under Device Management
I hit the ReSCAN Drives again, but still no mounting?

Can Anyone verified if an External Firewire only support 1 Partition HD?
So far that is my last deduction that makes any sense.

 

[Peter007]

Can any one comfirm this:

My friend say some "Firewire" card only work for Video CamCorder, and not the External HD???

It doesn't sound "LOGICAL"??? But in the Politic of Computing, anything is possible I suppose.

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: Peter007
Can any one comfirm this:

My friend say some "Firewire" card only work for Video CamCorder, and not the External HD???

It doesn't sound "LOGICAL"??? But in the Politic of Computing, anything is possible I suppose.

Not this is not correct. You can use firewire for exteranl hard drives within windows.

You can also partition it however you want (just so long as it is a basic disk and not dynamic).

Now under the DEVICE MANAGER, it sees 2 additional stuff:

1. SBP2 IEEE 1394 Devices - working
2. [disk drives] it sees a new "oxford IDE device LUN 0 IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device"

However, I still don't see any of my HD volume? under Device Management
I hit the ReSCAN Drives again, but still no mounting?

It sounds like you got it working, you just have to mount the volumes now. Go back to disk management and mount them.

-Erik