Two main things to look for in external firewire drive. 1.) oxford 911 bridge. 2.)spindle speed at 7200 rpm. If it has these two things, it will probably work great.

I have been using a 250 Gig 7200 RPM WD external firewire HD for several months without a problem. I capture to this drive with no dropped frames. It came sealed in it's own clear plastic enclosure, runs fairly quietly (no fan) sitting on my desktop between 2 LCD's and only gets warm to the touch.

I should add that there is no power switch with the WD external HD and the unit needs to be ''safely removed" via system tray if powering down prior to shutting down the computer. I run mine through the UPS so it doesn't shut down during a power failure while my computer continues to run.

I guess I should also mention that this HD comes preformatted as one FAT32 partition and most folks will likely want to reformat to NTFS prior to using.

BTW, to get around not having a power switch on the FW HD, I've plugged it into an old Kensington AC switch box that sits under my external monitor and gives me separate on/off for up to 6 devices.

JL

beerandchips


I agree with you on oxford 911 bridge. 2.)spindle speed at 7200 rpm but what I have is, I bought a normal 160 gig drive and then bought an external enclosure thats stackable with firewire connections, and it has the Oford 911 brige built in it... It works great and it is cheaper than a external box complete. and if the drive goe's itis up its very easy to replace. And the box can be configured to have a cd-DVD writer or tape drive in it as well

MJ.

I, like another guy on this forum, just fitted a hard drive "drawer" in one of those cases and I got 2 hard drives in identical cases that I can swap when I need. Good for storing different projects or different kinds of files (ie Music/Video/Pictures etc...).

I have the LaCie d2 120 GB and a Dell Inspiron 8200 Laptop. With Vegas I have experienced the FireWire freeze problem. Vegas locks up for 5-15 seconds and then acts normal again for a while just to freeze again very soon and so on. Very annoying. Impossible to work with. That's why I got a Toshiba MK6022GAX 60 GB drive for the media bay. I have no idea if this have been fixed somehow since I only use the Toshiba nowadays. I know there's people out there who has had no problem whatsoever with other FW HD's.
Best/Tommy

None of our 3 LaCie drives work with 6 pin to 4 pin on our 2 Dell Laptops. LaCie drives do work well with 6 pin to 6 pin on our desktops.

We are prurchasing a 6 pin PCMCIA card for a laptop and will let you know if it works...

The only difference between 4 pin and 6 pin 1394 is 6 pin has power on it, somehow I doubt that'll fix your problems on the laptop.

Well, I connect with self powered Lacie 6 pin to computer 4 pin. Let us know how it works out.
Best/Tommy

As a habit I try to remove the FW hardward via the tray icon but sometimes is says I can'e because something is accessing the drive (even though apps are running).

At this point I still shut down or disconnect it.

Is there a way to force the removal of hw?

The LaCie d2 is an excelent external. It's got the Oxford 911. Right now you can get good prices on LaCie' 400's as they seem to be switching over to the 800 drives.

Not sure what to tell you. I've always been able to eject the HD using the system tray in XP Pro. However, if you shut down the computer first, i.e., before the HD, you should not have any problems.

JL

jsteehl

I never had your problem happening to me until i reinstalled my whole system. One way of getting rid of it is this (I have a Swedish verison of XP home so my translation might not be correct):
Right click the drive in Windows explorer and choose Properties.
Click the Hardware tab.
Highlight the drive in the list.
Click the button Properties.
Click the second tab Principles.
Read and choose.

I have no idea how this affects drive performance though.

Best/Tommy

Any updates on this thread? I was considering a Lacie external hard drive for my Dell Inspiron 8200 so I would appreciate any additional info on this topic.

hey FUTZ,

what firewire enclosure (brand?) did you get to accept the removeable drawers (brand)? Or was the case a minitower with IDE and its own powersupply?

thanks,

bt

I think the firewire freeze problem is related to having a large hard drives. There is a drive setting in Windows that I turned off and it worked for me. Unfortunately I don't remember the fix, I just put my symptoms into Google and eventually I wound up on a windows support page. I use an ADS enclosure and swap IDE drives into it.