Re: Target Disk Mode not working?

On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 19:30:09 GMT, T i m <news@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hmm, in all my years using USB I can't remember anything dying (or
being killed) by plugging two things together that could *easily* be
plugged together .. especially as you *can't* miss connect under
normal circumstances (so therefore I've never needed to be 'careful')?

You can't with FW either, under normal circumstances. Bob was
carefully avoiding any stress to the hard disk motor, but he admits
paranoia about it - and with relatively delicate data devices like
portable hard drives, paranoia is the only sane option. Ho ho.

So maybe what Bob said (FW power source conflict?) was a red herring
then?

Should be - power is only supplied over the FW bus on demand, so
unless your kit is utterly broken by design there shouldn't be any
conflict. Bob's appears to have a mechanical switch for wallwart/bus
power, which is odd - I'd have expected autosensing, like mine do.

Hey, that reminds me of something... (big grin!)

For you maybe, I seem to have managed the impossible! First 'non
typical' foray (ie, Host <> Host) into FW and damage an external
enclosure (something that wasn't very easy to source in the first
place, with it being 'uncommon' / expensive n all).

Yeah, that's a pain. Is it definitely defunct, have you tried it on
another (working!) FW machine? Any of your PCs got FW, I know mine
always have the headers on the mobos.

Joking aside, maybe the issue / need / association between Mac's and
FW is a typical function of their use? If they are particularly
'good' for video editing then hooking up a FW camcorder or high speed
drive (for storing said video) could be more likely?

Apple always include FW because they invented it, and it _is_ better
than USB under most conditions. See wikipedia for a potted history. It
was designed with constant high-bandwidth video transfer in mind.

I have a FW interface on this PC and I think I've used it twice (not
because it's doesn't work well but because I don't 'do' video editing
nor need 'fast' external drives).

Yep. I never used mine before getting a Mac - I never needed external
disks before getting these silly non-upgradable computers!

p.s. Maybe you prefer FW on yer Mac because USB doesn't work properly
<weg>?

Nope, that works fine too. I've got four devices hanging off this
machine, all USB. Including the webcam.

When I switched over to USB on the FW/USB drive (cos the FW interface
had been killed) the volumes didn't auto mount (nor appear in DU) on
the Mini, something I take for granted to 'just work' <g> on XP? They
only seemed to appear if I rebooted the Mini with the drive turned on?
Is that how it should work?

Certainly not! The only time I've seen that was on a drive that was
running on USB bus power, and it didn't quite get enough - add a
second power source (another USB plug) and it popped up fine.

Did it do that before the FW side had trouble, do you know? Maybe
they've both popped, but the USB side slightly less so.

Cheers - J
--
"Shellfish are the prime cause of the decline of morals and the
adoption of an extravagant life style" -- Pliny the Elder
.

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