A little headsup for users who have experienced unmountable RED DRIVES

[XiaoSu Han]

We had two drives today, which had problems mounting. Tried all ports, all inputs of a mac pro. Then I used a Macbook Pro and it worked. Why?

The Mac Pro had Tiger installed, the MBP Leopard. It seems that this did the trick.

Just wanted to tell everybody who experienced this once that this might be the issue.

Cheers, Xax

 

[Brian Broz]

I'd like to add to this....

My RED Drive basically will not mount from bus power on a MacBook Pro on any standard FW800/400 (included with Lacie/Seagate) cable but WILL mount using an Apple (white) genuine FW400 cable.
At first I thought it was an issue with my 3yr old MacBook pro but I tried it with a new 15" and had the same issue. Don't tazer the messenger...Just passing on my experience.

IMHO the grade of cable actually seems to make a difference. Now don't all go out buying $149 Monster THX certified Firewire cable but it's worth a try if any of you have better grade/Apple OEM cables.
This issue drives me nuts on set but getting closer to finding a solution!

Broz

 

[Paul Leeming]

You aren't supposed to power the RedDrive solely through FireWire, it's a recipe for disaster and blown FireWire ports.

Always use the RedDrive's power pack as well as FireWire for safety.

This is Red's advice, not mine.

HTH

Paul

 

[dino g]

i have only blown firewire ports by Using the red power cable, never when just powering off bus power.

moreover, if you do loose ports, here is a trick...

power everything down, unplug all cables, including monitor and cables and all power cables, all cables unplugged i repeat...

then wait two minutes and plug it all back in making the cable to the drive the last thing you plug in and this should reset all your firewire ports.

unless they are completely blown, then you need new cards in the red drives.

 

[Nils Ruinet]

My Red drive has always mounted fine. However, I experienced some difficulties recently trying to mount my new Red RAM on my Macbook Pro. I tried everything, every cable I had, 2 different power supplies (everything worked fine on my Red drive), but I kept having issues.

I finally found out that if I plug the USB/FW cable first, and then wait a few seconds before I plug the power cable onto the drive, it always mounts perfectly (still quite slow, about 20-30 seconds before it mounts, but that's usual with Red drives). I've been able to reproduce this a lot of times, so it doesn't seem to be a random thing...

So, if you have issues mounting your drives, you should try this.
Also try remounting the drive on your camera and unmounting it properly again.

 

[Curran Giddens]

My RED Drive basically will not mount from bus power on a MacBook Pro on any standard FW800/400 (included with Lacie/Seagate) cable but WILL mount using an Apple (white) genuine FW400 cable.

At first I thought it was an issue with my 3yr old MacBook pro but I tried it with a new 15" and had the same issue.

Mine works on bus power with a Lacie FW800 cable on a new (unibody) 15" MBP. Not sure what drive the Lacie cable came from (someone snagged my cable and left this one by mistake), but it has a ferrite core on each end.

 

[XiaoSu Han]

I solved the problem by resetting the PRAM and unplugging every plug and replugging them.

Now it works again.

 

[Deanan]

I solved the problem by resetting the PRAM and unplugging every plug and replugging them.

Now it works again.

When a mac's wirewire ports get strained for power (too many drives pulling through the fw port), then resetting the PRAM is the only way to get them back. Sometimes you also have to unplug the power cord also.

 

[XiaoSu Han]

Yeah that's what I experienced in the end.
I found out today what caused the problematic firewire ports.

I tried to plug both RED DRIVES (Firewire 400 and 800 though) into the computer at the same time. This caused a power out and could only be solved by a PRAM reset (option command p+r)

Just so everyone could try this first when their drives won't mount suddenly.

Cheers, Xax