Firewire External Harddisk

[Gavin Hemphill]

Henk Postma wrote:

>On 6/24/05, gm c <gm_c2 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>I presently have kubuntu installed. It uses udev. when I put a audio
>>cd in the drive a icon pops up on desktop. When I plug in my externel
>>drive I have to run konqueror and sellect storage devices which
>>mounts partitions in /media. When I had ubuntu installed I remember
>>that when I plugin/powerup externel drive icons poped up on gnome
>>desktop.
>>I am using 2.6.10. maybe different result with 2.4.x.
>>If no message in /var/log/messages I think modules are not loaded.
>>Instead of insmod try modprobe. must have ieee1394,ohci1394 and sbp2
>>installed or in kernel.
>>    
>>
>I actually Tried both methods 'modprobe' and 'insmod'. Running kernel
>2.6.10 on Ubuntu system.
>
>  
>
>>give more details of what you did and what you get and dont get.
>>mike
>>    
>>
>It is just not reproducible enough to do a systematic study. Doing a
>few reboots, all with the drive attached and running in a row will
>sometimes mount it, sometimes not. When it's mounted, I
># lsmod > running.txt
>When, not, 
># lsmod > notrunning.txt
>I then try to modprobe the modules that are not loaded ->
>Then I try to restart hotplug
># /etc/init.d/hotplug restart
>then udev and hald
>Then I tried to turn the drive off and on, while connected, seeing if
>that triggers anything.
>
>All through these tests. I monitor /var/log/messages
>but I see nothing. If it doesn't get detected at bootup, I just can't
>get it loaded later.
>
>Hope this is enough information. 
>
>- Henk
>
>[SNIP!]
>
>
>  
>
I've been following this thread off and on for a while.  As a user of a 
number of different IEEE1394 drives from various manufacturers (more 
than a dozen at last count) and IEEE1394 PCI cards (an X86 IEEE1394, an 
X86 IEEE1394A, a Mac IEEE1394B, a Mac IEEE1394A and an older Mac which I 
suspect is IEEE1394), I find that problems under ubuntu tend to depend 
on the PCI card/drive manufacturer combination.  I have two drives that 
won't talk to ubuntu with any of the cards I have, but will talk to 
MacOSX just fine.  All the IEEE1394B (i.e., Firewire 800) drives I have 
will not be detected by ubuntu unless there is a IEEE1394 (not 
IEEE1394A) compliant drive on the bus.  IEEE1394A, and IEEE1394 drives 
will be detected by IEEE1394A pci cards reliably.  Mixing 1394A drives 
with 1394 drives on a 1394 controller results in spotty detection but 
having a single drive of either type seems to work reliably.

Now, since all the the drives I have (they all have ext3 partitions as 
well as Mac partitions), work on all of the MacOSX machines, the only 
conclusion I can draw is that IEEE1394 driver in the kernel is not as 
robust as the Mac kernel when it comes to the initial sbp2 negotiations 
with various versions of IEEE1394 implementations in the drives.  Since 
I'm lucky enough to have a selection of drives I have reliable detection 
on all my machines under hoary at the moment.   It does make it 
difficult to move the drives around to transfer information however.

Hope this might help some of the people trying to get Firewire drives 
hooked to their hoary systems.
    G++

-- 
Gavin Hemphill		<mailto:gavin.hemphill at drdc-rddc.gc.ca>
DRDC Atlantic 		<http://www.atlantic.drdc-rddc.gc.ca>
9 Grove St.,
P.O. Box 1012,		Tel: (902)426-3100 x 216
Dartmouth, NS,		Fax: (902)426-9654
Canada B2Y 3Z7

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