Saxphile
AppleNotCare
I only discovered this problem yesterday, and I think it is a general issue. Since it's hard to detect the corruptions, I think I need to warn people before they merrily put all their data onto their external hard drive.
My configuration is as follows:
Powerbook G4 1.33G, 1G RAM, 60G HD running 10.4.0
WD 120GB hard drive in IceCube 1394a/USB2 enclosure (Oxford 911+ chipset)
iMac G4 1.8G, 2G RAM, 160 HD running 10.3.9 server.
The external hard drive is usually connect to the Powerbook via firewire, and I've used it for storage and backup (SuperDuper) for a long time without any problems. After upgrading to Tiger I noticed that the .dmg files and .avi files I copied from the external drive are all corrupted (i.e. checksum error when mounting, corrupted frames when playing the DivX files.). At first I though the directory structure must be corrupted, so I tried to fix that with Disk Utility and TechToolsPro 4.0.4. Symptoms presisted, so I started to suspect that the controller in the enclosure was at fault. To check, I tried to boot from my backup partition on the firewire drive. As expected, it produced a kernel panic during the booting gray screen.
Since I've never had problems with the drive, I never bothered to update its firmware. So I downloaded the lastest version (3.8) and replaced the 3.6 on my drive. After the firmware update, it stopped mounting via both firewire and USB (didn't even show up in System Profiler). So I rebooted the powerbook, and to my great panic it kept getting a kernel panic during the booting gray screen. I tried every usual measure (zap PRAM, AppleJack, etc). Nothing helped. The computer did boot from my Tiger DVD, but neither TTP 4.0.1 or DiskWarrior 3.0.2 CD worked (kernel panic during the gray screen). Without other options, I did an upgrade on my Tiger installation, and miraculously it fixed the Powerbook. However, the external hard drive still failed to mount, or even be detected.
I then connected the external hard drive to my iMac. The firewire connection didn't work (actually crashed the iMac), but USB did. I then downgraded the firmware to 3.7 (since 3.6 had the corruption problem), and both firewire and USB connections worked on the iMac. I did some checks and there weren't any corruptions. I then connected the external hard drive to the Powerbook. Firewire worked, but it doens't even show up in System Profiler when connected via USB. However, the data corruption problem is still there. Up to now I haven't been able to resolve it, and I had to do my backup by mounting the Powerbook as target disk and do the backup on the iMac.
In summary, Oxford 911 seems to have problems with Tiger. With firmware version 3.6 and 3.7 the data was corrupted in the transferring process, and with version 3.8 it plain kills the host machine. I think this is quite a serious issue since the data corruption can't be detected unless you look at the data, and most people use firewire drives for backup.
Has anyone had a similar problem?
Charlie
My configuration is as follows:
Powerbook G4 1.33G, 1G RAM, 60G HD running 10.4.0
WD 120GB hard drive in IceCube 1394a/USB2 enclosure (Oxford 911+ chipset)
iMac G4 1.8G, 2G RAM, 160 HD running 10.3.9 server.
The external hard drive is usually connect to the Powerbook via firewire, and I've used it for storage and backup (SuperDuper) for a long time without any problems. After upgrading to Tiger I noticed that the .dmg files and .avi files I copied from the external drive are all corrupted (i.e. checksum error when mounting, corrupted frames when playing the DivX files.). At first I though the directory structure must be corrupted, so I tried to fix that with Disk Utility and TechToolsPro 4.0.4. Symptoms presisted, so I started to suspect that the controller in the enclosure was at fault. To check, I tried to boot from my backup partition on the firewire drive. As expected, it produced a kernel panic during the booting gray screen.
Since I've never had problems with the drive, I never bothered to update its firmware. So I downloaded the lastest version (3.8) and replaced the 3.6 on my drive. After the firmware update, it stopped mounting via both firewire and USB (didn't even show up in System Profiler). So I rebooted the powerbook, and to my great panic it kept getting a kernel panic during the booting gray screen. I tried every usual measure (zap PRAM, AppleJack, etc). Nothing helped. The computer did boot from my Tiger DVD, but neither TTP 4.0.1 or DiskWarrior 3.0.2 CD worked (kernel panic during the gray screen). Without other options, I did an upgrade on my Tiger installation, and miraculously it fixed the Powerbook. However, the external hard drive still failed to mount, or even be detected.
I then connected the external hard drive to my iMac. The firewire connection didn't work (actually crashed the iMac), but USB did. I then downgraded the firmware to 3.7 (since 3.6 had the corruption problem), and both firewire and USB connections worked on the iMac. I did some checks and there weren't any corruptions. I then connected the external hard drive to the Powerbook. Firewire worked, but it doens't even show up in System Profiler when connected via USB. However, the data corruption problem is still there. Up to now I haven't been able to resolve it, and I had to do my backup by mounting the Powerbook as target disk and do the backup on the iMac.
In summary, Oxford 911 seems to have problems with Tiger. With firmware version 3.6 and 3.7 the data was corrupted in the transferring process, and with version 3.8 it plain kills the host machine. I think this is quite a serious issue since the data corruption can't be detected unless you look at the data, and most people use firewire drives for backup.
Has anyone had a similar problem?
Charlie