I'm guessing my Firelite drive is beyond hope

Hidden Gekko

3 Years and 100 Posts 0_o
I got it used (though it wasn't heavily used, and was formatted). Worked for about a year, was working just fine last I checked, and now it's dead. Tried several different computer, even went out and bought a new cable. Nothing. Won't mount, won't appear in disk utility, system profiler, or even the Data Rescue demo.

It's a firewire SmartDisk FireLite, 40 GB. I'm pretty much going to buy a new one at this point, but I'm checking if there's anything else I can do. Kinda aggrivates me, because this same week my 3rd gen iPod stopped mounting, as well (just recharges when plugged in), so I'll probably have to replace its cable (or maybe it's broken too...).

I'll probably end up at my Apple Store to discover they don't have any Firewire harddrives (USB HD? Blech, useless), so I'll have to order a new one.

Anything that can still be done? Thanks...
 
Don't chuck it, or if you still have it, try again. My 40GB Firelite didn't work for two years, but I got a Sawtooth from work and my and tried again and hey presto - the magnesium alloy paperweight has come back to life as an HDD - be aggressive with the drive (i.e. plug/unplug the cable repeatedly until you get the orange light to flicker for longer than a second) and it should read in OS X (You may have to try this a few times) Format it immediately as HFS+, I lost mine again the first time I tried this by being too cocky and attampting to access the drive. If you want to use it as a portable drive again you'll need Smartdisk Tools from their site to reconfigure it, this will require booting into 9.2.2. Mine works on G4 machines only though, still won't talk to the iMac.
 
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