Hard Drive Recognition

Dwuane wrote on 7/6/2003, 8:31 AM

I have a quick question for all of my tech friends: I have a 40 gb. Western Digital ext.
hard drive that has been formatted and works fine, but when I first turn it on, it takes
my XP Pro 1 minute and 5 seconds to recognize it. Is that normal? It's hooked via 1394 firewire. Sometimes if I turn it on before the computer, it recognizes it right off,
but sometimes it doesn't. Any thoughts? I want this as an extra drive to capture and store media and such. Thanks in advance.

Dwuane

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 7/6/2003, 10:44 AM

I swore off ALL firewire drives. In a word, they suck.

a. Windows has problems with them
b. the interface is usually crap and prone to fail
c. they are usually much slower than regular drives
d. they are much more expensive, yet surprise, its the same IDE drive inside

Due to all of the above I no longer would use or recommend a firewire drive except if you are using a laptop and have no other real choice. If you can I would instead use either a USB drive (based on version 2 of the USB standard) or if you have a desktop go with the external drive in a removable drawer. Much more stable, far cheaper and Windows has no problems with them at all and you don't need to lug around an external power supply.

Grazie wrote on 7/6/2003, 11:24 AM

Ho! BB's back firing on all cyclinders . . . - Of course Bill is correct - My new pc lumpo will have internal drives with possible "drawers" to slot in other drives.

Good to see you back, dishing out your regular dose of TLC to others - ooo, I've missed yer ;-)

Grazie

Timhockey wrote on 7/6/2003, 11:30 AM

actually you are supposed turn the drive on then connect, weird but the way its the wayXP likes it

Dwuane wrote on 7/6/2003, 3:39 PM

I tried the USB route and couldn't get XP to recognize the drivers that were on the cd.
They didn't have XP drivers..only up to 2000. So I went back to firewire. Thanks for
your input, though.

Dwuane

PeterWright wrote on 7/6/2003, 8:16 PM

I've had a few hassles but I still think it's worth persevering with externals - makes things so flexible - begin editing on desktop - unplug - go to client's with laptop and review/change a few things in their office - even record their voiceovers straight onto the timeline - they love it.

BUT - I have two identical "Momobay" Firewire/USB2 enclosures (sexy little aluminium cases), and one of them has trouble getting found by XP on the desktop, the second one brings up the "ding dong" straightaway.

I've tried rebooting with it connected and switched on - still no dice.
I'll try waiting for 1 minute 5 seconds - what the hell, I'll make it 1 min 6secs!