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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Red drive will not mount

S

Sean Sweeney

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Hi everyone,

Having a perplexing problem. One of my red drives will not mount via firewire 400 or 800 with or without the power cable plugged in. Yet, when I re-plug it into the camera, all of my shots are there, safe and sound.

I'm a little bit flustered, the client needs this ASAP - any suggestions?

Thanks.
 
Update - after connecting via USB everything worked fine. Firewire still won't mount - is it possible that the connectors for both 400 and 800 have shorted or something of that nature?

Anyone else have this problem?
 
Yes, I had the same problem. It's just unpredictable, and my guess is that your firewire connections are fine, but it's a firmware issue (and I mean firmware in the drive, not the camera or computer).

Our drive stopped mounting via firewire 400...but the port works when using a firewire 400 cable with a firewire 800 adapter. Anyhow, USB seems to be the most predictable.
 
I tried several different firewire 400 and 800 cables. Last I checked the RAID drives were on backorder, so I'm guessing getting a replacement drive won't be possible for a while yet.

Is there any way to re-install the firmware on the red drives themselves? Perhaps it's a Sean/Shawn only issue :tongue:
 
I've had the same issue. USB seems reliable all the time, though you take a small hit speed-wise in transferring the data. I think one possible cause is indeed the cable but then I've used a new LaCie FW800 cable on it too and it makes no difference.

HTH

Paul
 
Guys finished shooting last night and all was good on the Reddrive. Producer took the drive to download the footage and the drive wouldn't mount for him. Now when they connect the drive to the camera, the camera locks up. Camera won't boot with the drive connected.

Anyone heard of this? Any thoughts on fixing or recovering data?

This is the first (and last) time my Red has gone out without me.

I put a ticket into Red. Hopefully we can recover the footage. I think the producer must have done something to the drive without realizing.


Thanks,
Dusty
 
The biggest issue with any drive (especially ones with FAT32) is to make sure that the drives are properly unmounted before unplugging. This is equally true on the computer side or the camera side.

When you plug it into the computer, does it show up in diskutility on the mac or in device manager on the pc?

Does the drive show up at all on the camera?

Please cc me when you email support. (d e a n a n - a t - r e d)
 
Deanan,

They (the guys who rented my camera) are telling me my camera will not function at all with the drive connected. Camera won't boot with drive attached and if the connect the drive to the camera after it has booted it locks up until they remove the drive.

I won't get the drive back so I can look at it until tomorrow night.

On the computer they only tried connecting with Firewire 400 and it would not mount on WinXP.

I have already talked to Brent and Sean at Red support and it sounds like I will need to send the drive back to Red for you guys to check out.


Mahalo,
Dusty
 
Thanks Dustin. I'd also suggest trying usb and FW800.
 
Had a similar issue happen to me twice now. My firewire 800 port stopped working. Drive will mount fine on the 400 or USB, and when plugged in on the 800 port I hear the drive power up, but it won't mount.

This is the 2nd drive that's had this issue (actually replaced the first one about a week and a half ago).

Is there anything I can do on my end to fix this? Or am I gonna need to bring it back to RED? (Hopefully 3rd time is the charm.)
 
fw800 died on my ray just now, fw400 saved me. I am on set and if fw400 dies too I might as well eat the drive...
 
Sean Sweeney said:
Hi everyone,

Having a perplexing problem. One of my red drives will not mount via firewire 400 or 800 with or without the power cable plugged in. Yet, when I re-plug it into the camera, all of my shots are there, safe and sound.

I'm a little bit flustered, the client needs this ASAP - any suggestions?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Hi Sean,

Losing the firewire 800 port on Red Drives seems to be a pretty common problem (firewire 400 less common). A few weeks ago we lost the firewire 800 port on about 5 drives! I posted a thread a few weeks ago to get to the bottom of it but basically there seems to be no solution from Red except to send your Red Drive back to them for repair. Reading up about it I think it's probably more of a fault with the firewire standard than anything else (USB2 is far, far more reliable which I believe is down to its architecture). Here's the old thread:

http://205.234.135.241/forum/showthread.php?t=20441

I think the problem is down to power spikes blowing the ports, so following someone else's advice we've purchased a firewire isolator cable (which basically cuts the power to a Red Drive, only allowing data through - so you have to power it via the AC adaptor). In your case it makes sense that you can still see your shots on camera because that's using the eSata port, but you'll only be able to backup using USB2 which is pretty slow (roll on USB3!). Get your Red Drive back to Red asap for repair (should take about a week to get it back if you're Europe-based).
 
I have this problem with both of my drives, regularly. Though, sometimes they mount, and sometimes they do not. I have the same problem regardless of cable, computer, or drive. Sometimes it will fail to mount 3-4 times in a row, and then the 5th time, it mounts fine. I had rented out one of my drives the other day, and they could not mount it at all via Firewire 400 or 800.

I've always been able to mount the drive, eventually via Firewire, or ultimately via USB, so its not a deal-breaker, but it is definitely frustrating. I will probably send my drives in with my camera when it goes in for the upgrade.
 
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