Important: glitch in Apple's Panther erases connected FireWire drives

Important: glitch in Apple's Panther erases connected FireWire drives. Disconnect all external drives before upgrading...or don't upgrade at all to be safe

By Jason Kottke • Oct 31, 2003 at 11:22 am

There are 10 reader comments

Buzz Andersen • Oct 31 2003 • 12:26PM

That article is not accurate in saying that there is no clear pattern. There is, in fact, a very clear pattern: namely, drives that use the Oxford 922 bridge chip-set with firmware version 1.02.

See:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/firewire800specialmessage.html

R. • Oct 31 2003 • 12:44PM

The article addresses that, about halfway down:

Apple is aware of the issue and says it is working on a fix. However, it claims the problem is limited to FireWire 800 drives (those capable of 800 megabits-per-second data transfers) using the Oxford 922 bridge chipset with firmware version 1.02.

I haven't had any problems with my external FW drive since upgrading.

Buzz Andersen • Oct 31 2003 • 12:51PM

Oh--yeah, you're right.

Ken • Oct 31 2003 • 2:23PM

That article is not accurate in saying that there is no clear pattern. There is, in fact, a very clear pattern: namely, drives that use the Oxford 922 bridge chip-set with firmware version 1.02.

From MacFixIt:

"The final paragraph of the Oxford statement is worth noting, since reports we've received here at MacFixIt indicate that the problem is not limited to FireWire 800 drives and the Oxford 922 chipset. In fact, one of our own drives here at MacFixIt was lost, and that drive was a FireWire 400 drive using an older chipset."

Russ • Oct 31 2003 • 3:17PM

I can, sadly, comment from personal experience. My external FW400 drive died. Not 800. 400. Not Oxford 922. 911. Other than those differences the circumstances and symptoms were precisely the same as those described.

jason • Oct 31 2003 • 4:07PM

is this just during the install? luckily i turned off my drive before installing... call it a hunch. normally i wouldn't do such a thing.

Chuck • Oct 31 2003 • 4:20PM

I had my LaCie 120GB FW400 drive attached during upgrade ... no problems. I guess I was lucky.

JP • Oct 31 2003 • 5:27PM

I'm glad to realize I'm not to blame for wiping out my firewire drive--my only whole-system backup, but I'm still pissed at myself.

Timbo • Nov 09 2003 • 8:32PM

I Had the same problem with a firewire 7200rpm Formac 80 gig Oxford 911 (firewire 400) Drive.....
Couldn't mount it and kept crashing my system after mount with loss of data on that drive....no refund from "cancom uk" had to run norton just to run it!!!
HELP!!

Timbo • Nov 09 2003 • 8:34PM

Every other time it mounts my system hangs....pain in the arse and i'm vexxed!!

This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.