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TICKET ARCHIVE -> LaCie drive not accessible anymore

jverschu - Jan 30, 2008 - 12:54 pm

Hello MacOSX support member,

Initially all worked fine, new LaCie 1TB drive, hooked up to a new Apple n-router, was all working wirelessly with a G4 laptop with a 6 week old Leopard install. Now I can see the LaCie but cannot open the drive to see, take files from or put files on. On my MacMini I however COULD access everything untill it stopped also letting me access the files from there. The LaCie folder is visible though but ONLY wirelessly! As I tried to see what would happen taking the router out of the chain and plugging the drive in wired via USB and also via Firewire 400. In the wired connection Finder does not even show the drive... Everytime I plug in a wire, USB or Firewire, the light on the drive lights up and the drive starts spinning but the drive does not become visible in Finder. Back to plugging it into the router I DO see the drive but double clicking the LaCie icon is where everything hangs again.
Hopefully you see some options to try but I am starting to think that MAYBE this new drive is faulty??

Thanks in advance,
Jan

tubajensen - Jan 31, 2008 - 5:35 am

Does the drive show up in Disk Utility? (You will find the application Disk Utility in the Utilities in the Applications folder).

Allan

jverschu - Jan 31, 2008 - 9:51 am

Thanks Allan for your help.

No it is not visible under Disk Utility, only the HD and my combo drive are there. In Finder I see the Router listed under shared, the LaCie is currently setup to work wirelessly. But when I click on the router, the box to the right remains BLANK. Restarting the computer and going back to Finder and the router: the main Folder "LaCie" is now visible but again I cannot open that and see beyond...
Thanks
Jan

tubajensen - Jan 31, 2008 - 1:23 pm

Which permissions does the folder LaCie have? You can use the Terminal application in the Utilities folder in Applications to check this. Use the command:

ls -l

Allan

jverschu - Jan 31, 2008 - 2:14 pm

Thanks Allan,
But with Terminal, you'll have to take me by the hand and walk me through step by step as I am completely unfamiliar with the workings of it. I presume that before entering your given code I have to go TO the LaCie from within terminal. How do I do that?
I got this sofar but I doubt is useful for you:

Last login: Thu Jan 31 07:44:52 on console
jan-verschurens-mac-mini:~ Home$ |s -|
-bash: syntax error near unexpected token `|'
jan-verschurens-mac-mini:~ Home$ LaCie
-bash: LaCie: command not found
jan-verschurens-mac-mini:~ Home$ ls -l
total 0
drwxrwxr-x 26 Home staff 884 5 Dec 22:02 ANtsP2P
drwx------+ 19 Home staff 646 30 Jan 19:46 Desktop
drwx------+ 59 Home staff 2006 15 Jan 12:01 Documents
drwx------+ 76 Home staff 2584 24 Jan 09:58 Downloads
drwxr-xr-x 9 Home staff 306 31 Jan 12:08 Incomplete
drwx------+ 41 Home staff 1394 11 Jan 13:33 Library
drwx------+ 5 Home staff 170 15 Nov 16:43 Movies
drwx------+ 5 Home staff 170 15 Nov 16:42 Music
drwx------+ 8 Home staff 272 13 Jan 19:05 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x+ 5 Home staff 170 11 Nov 06:57 Public
drwxr-xr-x 46 Home staff 1564 31 Jan 07:52 Shared
drwxr-xr-x+ 5 Home staff 170 11 Nov 06:57 Sites
drwxr-xr-x 5 Home staff 170 8 Jan 16:14 Software
drwxrwxrwx 15 Home staff 510 13 Jan 19:26 eBay items
jan-verschurens-mac-mini:~ Home$


Thanks

tubajensen - Feb 1, 2008 - 5:02 am

Your permissions don't look good. Permissions all the way down should be:

drwxrwxr-x 26 Home staff 884 5 Dec 22:02 ANtsP2P
drwxr-xr-x+ 19 Home staff 646 30 Jan 19:46 Desktop
drwxr-xr-x+ 59 Home staff 2006 15 Jan 12:01 Documents
drwxr-xr-x+ 76 Home staff 2584 24 Jan 09:58 Downloads
drwxr-xr-x 9 Home staff 306 31 Jan 12:08 Incomplete
drwxr-xr-x+ 41 Home staff 1394 11 Jan 13:33 Library
drwxr-xr-x+ 5 Home staff 170 15 Nov 16:43 Movies
drwxr-xr-x+ 5 Home staff 170 15 Nov 16:42 Music
drwxr-xr-x+ 8 Home staff 272 13 Jan 19:05 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x+ 5 Home staff 170 11 Nov 06:57 Public
drwxr-xr-x 46 Home staff 1564 31 Jan 07:52 Shared
drwxr-xr-x+ 5 Home staff 170 11 Nov 06:57 Sites
drwxr-xr-x 5 Home staff 170 8 Jan 16:14 Software
drwxrwxrwx 15 Home staff 510 13 Jan 19:26 eBay items

I would take care of this problem first. To do that Open Disk Utility. Click on the jan-verschurens-mac-mini (or whatever your hard disk is called) icon in the left window. Under the right window click the "Repair Disk Permissions" button. This may take a while.

Tell me if this takes care of the problem.

Allan

jverschu - Feb 1, 2008 - 9:26 am

Hi Allan,

Ah, good that you apparently did find something with the info I sent you. I will run the utility on my HD. Just to confirm for your train of thought: the LaCie hangups slowly became identical through both my girlfriends 3? year old G4 powerbook as well as on my NEW MacMini... The permissions I sent you were from my 3 month old MacMini...
Thanks for the help again. I will let you know probably tomorrow morning what the "Repair Disk Permissions" brings.

Jan

jverschu - Feb 2, 2008 - 1:15 am

Hi Allan,

DID find some odities probably. Haven't looked at them in great detail but they appear to be very similar on both computers. I have screen grabs of the results that I can send over in case you need them.
What I see is, after running "Verify disk permissions": a lot of lines saying: "Warning: SUID file with paths behind them. Some have "have been modified but will not be repaired" behind them.
"ACL found but not expected" is there on multiple lines.
Some lines with "permissions differ"

Hope this gives you more info. Like said when needing screen grabs, let me know.
Jan

tubajensen - Feb 2, 2008 - 8:50 am

Which version of Leopard are you using?

Allan

jverschu - Feb 2, 2008 - 9:07 am

Hi Allan,

When I click on the apple sign and go to ABOUT THIS MAC it says 10.5.1.
I purchased this MacMini a week after the Leopard launch. It had Tiger on it, was my surprise, with a Leopard DVD thrown in. I wiped the HD clean a few weeks later and did a so called fresh install of Leopard. Installed iLife a few weeks after that, pretty recent. On the iLife install disk it said though that those DVD's had 10.4 on it as the OS. But that should not be a problem to install iLife on this Leopard install I was told. That's the history here...

Thanks
Jan

tubajensen - Feb 2, 2008 - 9:12 am

I take you installed 10.5 and afterwards updated (how?) to 10.5.1. Some people report similar output when repairing permissions. By the way did you repair or just verify permissions? I recommend repairing them.

Allan

jverschu - Feb 2, 2008 - 12:09 pm

Hi Allan,
Yes did a "clean" install by erasing the Tiger install first. I did NOT upgrade as I heard that that could give blue screens. So fresh install. Afterwards it automatically said to me that updates were available that I ignored at first as I was needing the computer and did not want to reboot the thing. But as far as I recall in detail, I probably got the window flashing in my face again reminding me to have updates to install. Later on I went to the update button myself to check for updates a few times.
Also regarding software like iWork it apparently did NOT get updated trhough the "software update" button under the Apple logo. I have Numbers problems, slow saving an Excel imported file which the Apple store mentioned could have to do with not having updated it. The software updater scanning my computer only scans OSX and iLife updates apparently. As when I ran that, I later on opened Numbers and THEN it was mentioned that I needed Numbers, Pages and Keynote updates...
I ran the Verify Permissions with the noted results, than did run the Repair Permissions and REran the Verify Permissions. Same lines popped up.
I ran Verify Disk which ended with a green line that the HD was fine.

Thanks
Jan

tubajensen - Feb 2, 2008 - 5:09 pm

OK. Some recommend downloading the Leopard system updates from Apple's site - not just letting the software updater take care of this. I don't think it's so important when updating from 10.5 to 10.5.1. One thing we haven't checked yet is the permissions of your LaCie drive. Try typing:

ls -l /Volumes

in Terminal and press return on your keyboard. Your LaCie drive should show up with it's permissions. Copy the output from the command and post it in your answer.

Allan

jverschu - Feb 2, 2008 - 6:55 pm

Hi Allan,
I found the Apple OSX update site with the Leopard 1.5.1 update. Worth REloading that update maybe?
I copied-pasted your ls -l /Volumes command into Terminal and got this: no sign of the LaCie for my eyes at least...

Last login: Sat Feb 2 16:47:34 on ttys000
jan-verschurens-mac-mini:~ Home$ ls -l /Volumes
total 8
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 2 Feb 07:25 Macintosh HD -> /
jan-verschurens-mac-mini:~ Home$

The version of Leopard I checked under the Apple logo from the menu bar and open the "About this Mac" box. 10.5.1 is what popped up.

The girlfriend now also lost the Router from the shared list and she reloaded the Leopard 10.5.1 update... so we are monkying around here.
Hope you guys can figure it out. A reinstall of Leopard is hopefully NOT around the corner as that would be a hard pill to swallow for an ex windows guy!!!
Thanks Allan,
Jan

jverschu - Feb 2, 2008 - 7:01 pm

And a short add on. We could see eachothers computers before. Now I just noticed that I do not see her G4 anymore, nor does she see my MacMini... THAT is not a big deal though...
Jan

jverschu - Feb 2, 2008 - 7:13 pm

Plus the results from the G4:

Last login: Sat Feb 2 17:02:02 on console
pamela-nicoaras-powerbook-g4-12:~ pamelanicoara$ ls -l /Volumes
total 8
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Feb 2 17:00 Nicoara HD -> /
pamela-nicoaras-powerbook-g4-12:~ pamelanicoara$

tubajensen - Feb 3, 2008 - 6:19 am

Sorry, I have no ideas. If you want me to reopen your question please tell me.

Allan

jverschu - Feb 3, 2008 - 2:08 pm

Hi Allan,

Yeah I do not blame you at all for giving up on this. Doing this help remotely adds to your handicap. Last night we were looking ourselves in the sharing and firewall settings and WEIRD things happened. WIRED connected my girlfriend's G4 had FULL access to my MacMini, while I only had access to her public folder, though my settings did not display that... We managed to get her WIRED to see the LaCie and be able to put stuff on there. I (do not ask me what I all did) was all of a sudden able to see the LaCie wirelessly without any problems. I think all is just in the settings on the computers. NOW we just have to see what is what and does what. I lost things I did not remove and soforth and it WORKS now... I'll see when I can find something that makes sense and let you know.

Thanks!
Jan

tubajensen - Feb 3, 2008 - 4:12 pm

Glad that you made progress!

Allan

jverschu - Feb 3, 2008 - 5:04 pm

Thanks for the battle cry, but it is going downhill again for no reason. I checked all the Firewall, Networking and Sharing settings on both computers. I HAD the LaCie fully wirelessly working on my MacMini untill I rebooted. Router visible, LaCie visible but not openable to access the data. Her G4 lost even the router icon and cannot even go to the LaCie. At one point the LaCie was visible on my computer under the computer window under devices and than it was listed again under shared. I guess we are gonna have to pack it all up and whistle into an Apple store to have a genius check this out...
I'll keep you posted.
I am going back to checking wired connections now, see what they improve...
Thanks Allan,

Jan

jverschu - Feb 3, 2008 - 5:34 pm

I am starting to suspect the LaCie drive... Wired I get no recognition anywhere, Firewire or USB... The drive turns on as soon as there is a connection but that's it. Nothing on the computers... This thing is MAYBE a dud...
It may take awhile to figure this out, to get to an Apple store. But I'll keep you posted.
Jan