external drive again

weaver wrote on 3/1/2004, 9:57 AM
I just installed an external 7200rpm Western Digital 120GB drive via firewire to my 3GHz 1Gb laptop. I plug my sony camcorder into the external harddrive - via firewire. I try to capture video via MS, and save the file to the external harddrive - and within 2 minutes, the external harddrive stops talking (little red status light illuminates.). Error message states that drive is not communicating.

I can successfully save lots of video to my internal laptop drive when camcorder is connected through the external drive.

Any suggestions?

Also, the MS interface for saving to the external drive is not overly clear to me. I was able to change the file saving destination (to the external drive) - but the basic capture window still insists on showing folders that I am not interested in (internal drive folders - media clips etc).
Thanks
IW

Comments

kgresko wrote on 3/1/2004, 3:43 PM
You cannot capture a video directly to an external drive without a capture program, which Screenblast has. You can change the place where the captured video is captured to in the dialogue that you will get when you go through the capture sequence that Screenblast presents to you. I regularly capture to an external firewire or USB2 drive with no problems.

IanG wrote on 3/2/2004, 1:56 AM
Firewire drives seem to be like the little girl with the little curl - they're either good or they're horrid! I think the 1394 spec allows daisy chaining isochronous and asynchronous devices, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's problematic. You could try posting your question on the Vegas forum if you don't get an answer here - there seem to be a lot of firewire disk users over there.

Ian G.
weaver wrote on 3/3/2004, 10:14 AM
I just called Western Digital. They claim I need Windows XP service pack#1 which has fixes for firewire disk management issues. They also suggested reformatting hard drive to NTFS format/partition. The drive defaults to FAT32.
Nothing is easy.
weaver wrote on 3/3/2004, 10:24 AM
I am not following your issue on capturing to an external drive. I am using MovieStudio Screenblast to capture ... and save realtime ... while capturing - to the external harddrive. It captures for about 30 seconds and then chokes.

I don't really understand the capture window. I am saving to the external drive, but the capture window insists on showing media clips from some other folders resident on my internal drive. I am no longer saving to those folders! Is it possible to change what folders I am monitoring in the capture window?

I also didn't find it easy to change the captured file destination. It was buried deep in an obscure pull down window. I'm probably not doing it the easy way.
weaver wrote on 3/3/2004, 10:34 AM
I just spotted another message in the forum that explains the file management approach. I get it now.
dtudela wrote on 3/4/2004, 7:30 AM
Don't know if this will help, but here is my experience with the external drive issue. I installed a "QUE!M3, 120gb hard drive on my Windows ME system. It also would routinely choke up mid-stream when capturing and freeze my system. After calling tech support I was told that the "chip-set" on the external drive (I believe the chip-set was Texas Instrument) was probably not compatible with my capture software, etc. I tried a different external drive--"COBRA Ezquest 120 gb and it works flawlessly. I have since added 3 additional Ezquest drives--all daisy chained off the first one. They work really well for me. Hope this helps. Keep in mind this is not my field of expertise--but it happened just this way for me. Good luck.
dtudela