Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (
More info?)
"Joel" <jrATjraskin.com> wrote in message
news:Xns96BA6DE926AB1joelraskinnyc@129.250.170.81...
> I've had some weird behavior on my WinXP Pro system since adding two
> firewire drives about a year ago (Plextor PX-504UF CD/DVD burner) and a
> LaCie D2 120Gig hard drive. It takes 3 restarts any time I need to
> restart the computer before the external drives + the LAN is recognized.
> 1st restart: LAN is recognized but neither of the external drives are.
> 2nd restart: external drives are recognized, but, no LAN (or internet
> connectivity - which is through LAN/cable modem). 3rd restart:
> everything is recognized. This behavior was fairly consistent and I
> pretty much ignored it because (a) neither Plextor nor LaCie was much
> help when I first reported it, and (b) I seldom have to restart.
>
> I've since added a 2nd firewire drive (SimpleTech 160gb) to the mix for
> backup purposes and the startup behavior changed somewhat, but, is still
> weird. 1st restart: LAN is recognized but no external drives. 2nd
> restart: LAN is recognized + the original Plextor burner + LaCie drive
> are recognized, but, not the new SimpleTech drive. 3rd restart: LAN
> plus all 3 external drives are recognized.
>
> I wouldn't be too concerned except that while trying to copy files from
> the LaCie drive to the SimpleTech, I got errors and when I clicked on
> certain folders on the Lacie drive, I got "drive p: is not formatted. Do
> you want to format now?" To make a long story short... I used the WinXP
> Check for Errors disk tool and it recovered the files, some in the
> original folders and some in a new found.000 folder at the root, with a
> dir0000.chk folder within that. I copied the found files to the backup
> drive.
>
> 2 days later, after turning off the computer to add additional RAM, I
> restarted it and then connected the firewire cable. Later, when I tried
> accessing some of the files that had previously been lost (then
> recovered) on the Lacie drive, they were gone again! But, after
> restarting the computer, they were back.
>
> So, a bunch of questions related to this...
> 1- any thoughts on why the weird startup behavior?
> 2- is there a preferred way to start and stop the computer while the
> externals are connected? IOW, was I wrong to start the computer and
> then plug in the firewire cable
> 3- should I completely reformat the Lacie drive and start over? or, does
> that drive sound like it's failing?
>
> FYI, the drives are connected as follows.... Firewire cable from the
> computer goes to the Plextor burner. Passthrough from Plextor goes to
> the Lacie drive. Passthrough from there goes to the Simpletech.
..
Hi J. Why don`t you have a look at your Event Viewer to see if you`ve got
any errors\warnings that might help. Right click My computer\Manage\Event
Viewer.
best wishes..OJ