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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Lacie Hard Drive Problem

jimbo - Jun 29, 2005 - 4:36 am

I have had a LaCie 250 GB firewire hard drive for some time. It has always worked fine. After upgrading to Tiger, I did not use the hard drive for about a month. When I next tried to use it, however, problems began. As soon as the hard drive is plugged in, it makes a series of loud beeping noises, which repeat in a cycle for several times.

The computer shows no signs of recognizing the hard drive. It does not show up on the desktop. Disk Utility does not see it. However, System Profiler acknowledges that a LaCie hard drive is plugged into a firewire port.

Does anybody know how to solve this problem? Thanks.

owaters - Jun 29, 2005 - 5:58 am

This doesn't sound too good but I have had a similar problem. First ensure that your firewire connections are clean on both the computer, the cable and the HD. Try reconnecting the HD. If you are still having problems you could try updating the firmware for the hard drive. If it is a d2 250GB HD then use the Lacie Update Tool which can be found at http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14069

Hope this helps.

jimbo - Jun 29, 2005 - 8:28 pm

Thanks. That helped, but it did not completely solve the problem. The firmware update made the following change: after the series of beeps, a warning message pops up in Mac OS X telling me that the computer can not recognize the LaCie HD. It gives me three options: Initialize, Ignore, or Eject. Clicking Initialize opens up Disk Utility, which now recognizes that the LaCie HD is connected (unlike before, where Disk Utility saw nothing). However, Disk Utility incorrectly thinks the HD is a 2.0 TB (it's 160 GB), and more importantly, does not allow any options for First Aid. I tried erasing the disk but an error message popped up. The biggest problem, of course, is that the disk is still not mounted on my desktop and is still unusable. Do you have any more ideas? Thanks so much.

owaters - Jun 30, 2005 - 5:57 am

If you canafford to lose the data on this disk then I would recommend trying to format it using Disk Utility. Try formatting the drive and if you are still getting errors then it maybe and idea in looking to get some software which maybe able to solve the problem. My personal recommendation would be DiskWarrior http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11707

If you have Apple Care you will have been issued with an AppleCare CD containing Tech Tool Pro which also maybe able to help.

Hope this will be able to sort out the problem
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owaters - tech support
"Hope I have been of some assistance in making your OSX experience even better" )

jimbo - Jun 30, 2005 - 6:18 am

Disk Utility crashes every time I try to format the HD. I tried using TechTool Deluxe (is this different from TechTool Pro? I have Apple Care), but was unable to locate the LaCie HD with it. (I may be doing something wrong, as I am unfamiliar w/ the program.) Perhaps I will have to purchase Disk Warrior, but are there any steps I should take in the meantime? Thanks.

owaters - Jun 30, 2005 - 6:44 am

It maybe worth reinstalling your system or trying your hard drive on another system to see if it is a software fault as opposed to a hardware fault. Other than that I am out of ideas sadly. I can release this support query back into the pool for other techy's to help with if you would like?
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owaters - tech support
"Hope I have been of some assistance in making your OSX experience even better" )