xibits Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 I have retrospect 6.1, and I am working on a mac OSx 10.4, and just purchased a lacie writemaster dvd+-rw. When I first opened retrospect, it saw the new drive, I configured it, and created an entire backup set. Since my computer crashed, the drive does not show up in the configure menu! I have disconnected the drive, from power and firewire cable, reconnected and rebooted I have reinstalled the LaCie driver I have uninstalled 6.0 and 6.1, reinstalled 6.0, 6.1 I have started to tear my hair out. I purchased this drive specifically, because I was having the SAME problem with the old one. (I thought it was just because it was a 5 year old drive, and some mac os update had made it incompatible.) Now I feel like an idiot because this one, too, is useless for retrospect now. Any suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 Quote: the drive does not show up in the configure menu! There is no "configure menu". Are you talking about the "Storage Devices" window that appears in Configure > Devices ? Does the drive show up in Apple System Profiler? If not, does the drive show up in Apple System Profiler on a different Mac? Does the device show up in Configure > Devices > Device Status ? Does the device show up as "ignored" in Configure > Devices > Device Status ? Russ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xibits Posted April 25, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 There is no "configure menu". Are you talking about the "Storage Devices" window that appears in Configure > Devices ? Yes, that's it! Does the drive show up in Apple System Profiler? Nope. The only thing listed under FireWire, is "Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec" If not, does the drive show up in Apple System Profiler on a different Mac? Yes... It shows up as LaCie with all the details.... on someone else's computer with the same OS. Does the device show up in Configure > Devices > Device Status ? Nope. Does the device show up as "ignored" in Configure > Devices > Device Status ? It's just not listed, does not show at all. Only the internal mac matshita shows up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 Sounds like the Firewire port on your Mac is no longer operating but the drive is good. Have you tried using another firewire port? Have you tried connecting some other Firewire device? Quote: Quote: Does the drive show up in Apple System Profiler? Nope. The only thing listed under FireWire, is "Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec" If it doesn't show up in Apple System Profiler, there's no hope of Retrospect being able to see it. This sounds like it may not be a Retrospect issue. There's a possibility that one of the .kext drivers in /System/Library/Extensions/ became corrupted in the crash. What happens if you boot that Mac from the installer DVD (not on the suspect drive, but the Mac's own DVD drive) ? Can the drive be seen then? As a last-ditch effort, you could do an archive-and-install to get a new system (and new .kext drivers), but that would be painful. If the Firewire port was working, you could put the other Mac into Target Disk Mode and copy appropriate kext drivers from that one (which is the same OS level, you say) if you know what you are doing, but there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem here in that you need the Firewire port working to access the other computer in TDM. If networking is operating, you could mount the other Mac's disk and copy the appropriate kext drivers over to your machine, again, if you know what you are doing. Permissions and ownership will be important. I assume you have booted from the install DVD and have used Disk Utility to check/repair the integrity of the file system. Russ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 Hopefully, you can discern from your answers to Russ's thoughtful questions that you have a hardware problem that is unrelated to Retrospect. Since you declined to provide any information at all regarding your Apple Macintosh ("I am working on a mac OSx 10.4") there's no way for readers to offer suggestions, opinions or experiences. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xibits Posted April 25, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 Hi Russ, That would have been my next step... I do not believe it is a hardware problem, since the same problem happened on the same system to a drive I had connected previously, on the same port. However SINCE THEN, after connecting the new drive for the first time, on the SAME port, A dialogue came up that retrospect noticed a new drive on the system, asked if I wanted to initialize it, and I was able to successfully initialize and backup using this new drive. It was only after the crash that my drive now remains undetected/invisible (whatever the semantics are) on my only firewire port. So, this leads me, as you do, to suspect that it may be some kind of system/driver/extension type of corruption. I'll try to see if the drive shows up, booting up from the install disk, and trying using the disk utility... I was hoping on not having to do an archive/install. ( Can I really just copy the .kext drivers (whichever is associated with the firewire) from another mac? There are about a million- which ones would be affected? I found: IOFireWireIP.kext IOFireWireFamily.kext IOFireWireSerialBusProtocolTransport.kext IOFireWireAVC.kext IOFireWireSBP2.kext Thank you so much for all your help!! Naomi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 Quote: Can I really just copy the .kext drivers (whichever is associated with the firewire) from another mac? Yes, providing that the Macs are at exactly the same software rev level. You could tell by looking at the sizes and dates on the kext files (in Terminal, ls -l ). A reboot will be required. If it were me, I would create a folder somewhere (Desktop) and first put the old ones there for restore if necessary. Note the ownership and permissions. Quote: I found: IOFireWireIP.kext IOFireWireFamily.kext IOFireWireSerialBusProtocolTransport.kext IOFireWireAVC.kext IOFireWireSBP2.kext I don't think it is the IOFireWireIP.kext because I believe that is for IP over FireWire (yes, people use FireWire to connect servers in a rack for a fast connection). Another approach would be to use the terminal command "cmp" to compare the kext files from your machine with those from the other Mac. E.g., if the kext files from the other Mac are copied into a folder "foo" on your Desktop: Code: $ cd /System/Library/Extensions /System/Library/Extensions $ cmp IOFireWireFamily.kext ~/Desktop/foo/IOFireWireFamily.kext russ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted April 26, 2007 Report Share Posted April 26, 2007 Sometimes the FW ports on various Mac models locks up. Unlocking is simple: Shutdown the Mac (normally). Disconnect everything from the Mac, especially the power cable (and in terms of portables, the battery, too). Wait at least 10 minutes (no cheating). Connect everything and start the Mac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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