Lacie Porsche Drive Problems

[granthac]

Hi,
I am having major troubles with my porsche external HD. When I first bought it (a little over a year ago) I had trouble putting larger files on it (greater then 100mb). I asked a question on the forum about what to do about it, and the response was a fairly unaninmous REFORMAT! I did that and I did not have any troubles. Lately though I have ran into the same thing. Now there are some files on my HD that I cannot get off because it says data in a certain file cannot be read or written. I have tried deleting this file and moving on, but still there are things in the folder I am trying to move that cannot be read. I have tried to disk warrior my drive, as it says that there are 32% of files out of place. When I try to rebuild Disk Warrior freezes and tells me that there is a disk error. I have to force quit as disk warrior is no longer responding. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated as I really need the files on my Drive.
Thanks!!

[Lt Major Burns]

it sounds simple, but have you repaired the disk in disk utility?

[granthac]

That was actually the first thing that I tried, and it said everything was fine. I also tried switching cables to no avail. I am fearing that perhaps it is a hardware issue.

[karavite]

Hi granthac. FYI, I own two of these (250 GB) and though I have never had a problem (a little over a year old), I recently was going to buy an extra new drive or two, but read opnions from people about these drives having some problems. Maybe a call to Lacie would be worth the trouble? They will probably tell you to try Diskwarrior. I'm sorry if this is such a downer messaage! :-)

[powermac]

I also have the Lacie Porsche drive. Although, I have not experienced any trouble, I have heard people that have. I don't have a solution for you, although if you chose to buy a new drive, I have read many recommend Western Digital Drives.
I am assuming, your drive is format for OSX?

[karavite]

P.S. Right after I posted my last message I did a little search and (sorry, don't have the link), I read another forum post describing that when these drives have problems it is most often with the Firewire controller, not the actual drive going bad. So, if it comes down to your not being able to get data that is important, you could always swap the drive to another external box and retrieve your data.

[powermac]

If he needed to get a new external case, should he get Firewire or USB? I have been thinking about a new drive myself, not sure what is going on with Firewire?

[Lt Major Burns]

i would still stick with firewire. it's far more stable. USB2.0 can reach speeds of 480mb/s, but firwire is far more likely to reach speeds of 400mb/s. it's designed to run at that speed, not extended from 12mb/s. also macos still works better with firewire, the disk is even bootable with firwewire.