Firewire and lost date - anyone?

Caruso wrote on 3/20/2004, 5:07 AM
I have posted in the past that I've enjoyed troublefree use of my three Maxtor firewire enclosures along with two ADS enclosure boxes.

This week while editing a veg file, I heard through my speakers three da-dit, di-dats as my computer signaled the disconnect/reconnect (x3) of some one of my firewire components. This occured as one of my firewire drives was in the process of input/output. Net result: that drive was corrupted such that WinXPPro regarded it as a RAW formatted drive (no valid XP format) and would no longer allow access to its data.

I've encountered similar problems in the past and solved them by simply rebooting, letting WinXP "check" the probelm drive, make corrections, and continue using the drive - no data lost.

This time, I could not get WinXP to check the drive. Moving the drive to another enclosure also did not help.

Frantic to save my data, I searched on the term "data recover" online and found what I think is a nifty little program called "GetDataBack". I downloaded and paid for the unlock key and was able to scan the affected disk, identify valid files and copy them to another drive (whew!!). I then formatted the bad drive and it works as good as new now.

I called Maxtor support - spoke to a knowledgeable chap who congratulated me on my choice of "GetDataBack" as a great little piece of software, but, who also explained that, from my description, he thought the "tailpiece" on my Maxtor external drive enclosure was going bad.

It seems to be working fine now, so, I'm curious if anyone else has encountered a similar problem and might like to comment.

I've already read those threads where Maxtor's enclosure components were described as junk, I've had this stuff for a couple of years now, so I would prefer helpful comments rather than brand put-downs. My enclosure have served me faithfully and assisted in my efforts to earn a bit of cash, so, IMHO, they don't owe me anything. Furthermore, this is the first problem I've ever experienced with them, although I've had ADS kits fail me in the past (ADS made good on everything, though).

Comments welcome.

Thanks in advance.

Caruso

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 3/20/2004, 5:20 AM
I just had a HD fail and got GetDataBack. It couldn't get anything I wanted of my dead drive (it was REALLY dead) but I used it to get some stuffoff my firewire drive. Great program. :)

Glad you got your stuff back though!
rmack350 wrote on 3/20/2004, 4:30 PM
I had a similar problem recently. Had to send an ADVC100 back to Can'o'pups, retired two 1394 enclosures, replaced my 1394 card, and bought one new ADS enclosure. I have one drive left that won't co-exist with the ADVC100 any more.

I'm pretty sure that the ADVC100 popped and took the SIIG 1394 card with it, along with one of the enclosures. The other enclosure had a granite digital card in it that supplied it's own bus power. I decided that was bad so I retired it.

When replacing the 1394 card I decided to get a separate USB2.0 adapter. That way if one died the other would still be available. Someday I'll upgrade my system and won't need that USB card any more.

The experience was bad, overall.

Rob Mack
dvdude wrote on 3/20/2004, 4:47 PM
You've probably checked this lready but in case you haven't.

How's your 1394 cable quality?

I had a number of infrequent issues with random disconnects of the camcorder from the ADS pyro card and in a fit of desperation I swapped the (Pinnacle supplied - don't ask!) 1394 cable for the one that came with my Panasonic 951 camera. It just looked better quality and was the same length. I've had no further issues since.

I can imagine cabling issues being very destructive to data on it's way to a hard drive even though I'm sure that was considered when developing the 1394 spec.

Just a thought.
BillyBoy wrote on 3/20/2004, 7:14 PM
I don't now if they still available but I wrote several posts on the Maxtor firwire drives warning about their high failure rate almost 2 year ago. That "tailpiece" is ah... well I think you can figure out what I think of it.
At least it seems they acknowledge the problem now. They didn't originally.
Caruso wrote on 3/21/2004, 3:48 AM
I haven't searched, Billyboy, but, I guess those posts are still available, and you'll probably find at least one post from me arguing that I've been using these things (Maxtor enclosures) without problems.

The tech rep I spoke to at Maxtor mentioned that they had encountered numerous "issues" concerning XP and external firewire connectivity. He seemed like a straight shooter to me, didn't barf or resort to the 5th when I explained how I regularly opened the case to swap drives, and was well aware of the GetDataBack software.

What most perplexes me is that the two "failed" enclosures are now up and running fine again, although one seems to be selective as to which of my drives it will accomodate.

All drives spin in this enclosure, all drives are recognized by my system, but, one drive will not initialize that "what do you want to do" screen, where you choose to explore, play, or take no action.

Move that drive to another enclosure, and it works just fine - go figure.

There are three good points to this experience -

1. I know now that I can't trust this setup to be infallible.
2. I retrieved all of my data.
3. I have backed up all critical files (albiet to other external drives) so that I won't shed so many sweat droplets if I re-encounter this problem.

There are probably more good points, I'm just to negative a fellow(ess) (don't want to divluge personal info, LOL) to see them.

Thanks for the replies.

Caruso
BillyBoy wrote on 3/21/2004, 8:50 AM
Backups are like insurance policies. A royal pain and a big expense, until you need it. :-)
Caruso wrote on 3/21/2004, 3:04 PM
So right you are, Billyboy.

Caruso