Firewire drive in Win XP won't stay alive to allow file recovery.

  • Thread starter Thread starter JimB
  • Start date Start date
J

JimB

I have an external firewire harddrive that I recently had ATI software dump
a bunch of files. I am using a file unerase program which finds the files
just fine but the firewire drive will cease to exist before the recover
software has a chance to recover the files. Since the firewire drive
requires Windows to be running to see it, a floppy disk DOS type recover
won't do.
So the question is:
How can one force WinXP to keep the drive alive?
Or is there a file recover program that will unerase the file in place?
Everything utility I have looked at wants to recover the file to a different
drive to insure that it won't corrupt the data on the original drive?????
Also will the restore feature in Windows cause the files to be recovered
recovered?
This is not what I remember with DOS, where one merely change the ? in the
beginning of the erased file name to the correct one of your choice and all
was good and I must say simpler.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

JimB
 
Don't understand what you mean by not being able to keep the firewire drive
alive. I assume you mean the Device Powers Down. If so, have you been to
Device Manager->IEEE1394 Bus Host Controllers->Texas
Instruments.....->Properties->Power Management and checked the Power Saving
checkbox is not checked. If that is not checked yo could try accessing the
drive through DOS. Contrary to what you posted there is a firewire DOS
driver to be found in "Dosszter2-5.zip". You can search for it in Google.
I've used it and it works for me.
 
First, thanks for the input.

I went to the device manager as suggested. There is no option to change any
power saving setting. However, there are two options that could make sense.
One is to allow this device to bring the computer out of standby (under the
IEEE host controller). There is also one for the drive to Optimize
performance rather than quick removal and I selected the Optimize for
performance. Neither makes any difference.
I originally bought a USB 2 external drive and the problem was even worse.
What happens is that Windows sees the drive and all works well but after a
while is dissapears and one must cycle the power to the drive to get it
recognized again, for a while any way. I pursued that problem and was told
(on a USB type of website/forum - not a Newsgroup) that it is an ongoing
problem with Windows XP/USB and that I should change to a firewire drive to
cure the problem. I did and still have the problem, but the time it exists
is a little longer. However, when using the unerase software, it will
remove itself in minutes or even seconds while performing the undelete.
There are no issues regarding this problem on the MS help site, so here I am
looking for an answer.
I originally purchased the drive to deal with large video files but found
that it is so unreliable that I cannot burn DVDs from this external drive
and must move the files to one of the computer internal drives first. All
very unconvenient.
Any other ideas?

JimB
____________________________________________________________________________
___
 
Firstly I use a USB/Firewire combo drive with WINXP Pro and have no
problems. The drive is a IBM Travelstar 20GB. I suspect anyone telling you
there are problems with USB and firewire external drives in WINXP is
mistaken (I'm being kind).

It appears to me that the drive is powering down for some reason. I am
suprised you don't have a checkbox under "Power Management" for "Allow the
computer to turn off this device to save power", I do. It seems from what
you have posted that is what is happening. I wonder if you try deleting
"Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE Host Controller" rebooting and let it
reinstall would help. However, that does not explain why you are having the
same trouble with the USB port.

Are you powering the drive from the firewire port (6 pin to 6 pin cable) or
are you powering it from either an external power pack or from a USB port?
Perhaps if you tried to power the device from an external source that may
help as it sounds as if it is being powered down by the computer for some
reason, perhaps it is simply overloading the port.

Lastly, any chance of trying the device on another machine? If it works on
another machine it would be reasonable to think the problem lies with your
machine whereas if it doesn't the problem is with the device, perhaps
drawing more power than the port(s) can provide.

Hope this is of some help.
 
No, it is power by the supply intended for the drive housing. Good idea
though to try on another machine. Why didn't I think of that?

Thanks,
JimB
 
No, it is power by the supply intended for the drive housing. Good idea
though to try on another machine. Why didn't I think of that?

Thanks,
JimB
Click to expand...

Hi:

I have two 250GB Maxtor 1Touch external ATA-133 7200RPM HDDs.

One is running from an OrangeLink FireWire 800/1394a+b PCI controller
card as a 1394a device and set to spin down after 10 minutes of
inactivity via Maxtor's 1Touch software utility.
This is the only firewire device on my system

The other drive runs from my Asus P4T533-C (i850e chipset)
motherboard's USB2 port and set to spin down after 5 minutes of
inactivity using the same software.
The only other USB2 device I have is a Canon D1250U2F USB 2.0 scanner
also running from the motherboard's USB2 port.

Each drive has its own external power supply.
The firewire card has an optional +12V internal power connector which
I use.
Enermax 550W PSU
Promise Ultra133 TX2 PCI controller card
2x80GB Maxtor D740x 7200RPM ATA-133 HDDs [UDMA6]
Toshiba SD-M1612 16x/48x DVD-ROM motherboard IDE0
Plextor PX-708A 8xDVD±R/RW CD-R/RW burner Motherboard IDE1
P4 2.8b/1GB OCZ PC1066 RIMMs
WinXP HE SP1
etc

No problems with these firewire and USB2 devices at all.

Happy trails,

Fleabus ..............

Please remove the X from my address to e-mail me.
 
Back
Top