Lacie drive gone bad?

[turk sanchez]

tried to use my Lacie firewire drive (200 gig) last night and it would not work. I tried to make a new Pro Tools session on it and it kept giving me an error - "please select an audio record volume"

I went to answerbase and did a search and it said to trash the digi database folder...it didn't help.

The strange thing is I could copy stuff from this drive to another and it would open fine...but if I tried to open an existing session on the Lacie all the audio files are missing and it says the "original disc allocation can't be used"...but again, if I copy to another drive it opens fine.

I wiped the drive/reformat and I still can't make a new session on it...any ideas? The drive is 1 year old.

Thanks

[sounddevisor]

waffle waitress -

Your drive is fine - no need to reformat.
You need to go into the "Workspace" window in Pro Tools, and set the drive to be a "record" drive - it should be pretty easy to figure it out once you have that window open. I think the available options are r (record,) p (playback,) and t (transfer)

-sounddevisor

[turk sanchez]

hey thanks...but I was using it with no problems and out of nowhere this issue came up without changing anything or even unpluging the drive.

I will give it a shot...thanks for the tip.

[turk sanchez]

thanks sounddeviser...it worked. Strange that it changed on it's own though? Cool tip! This is why I love this website.

[sounddevisor]

Glad that solved your problem, waffle waitress. I don't know why that issue seems to happen spontaneously, but I've run into it before, on my own system and those of several other people. I wonder if it's connected in any way to repairing permissions, or some other system-level maintenance that happens on it's own (like a cron-job).

Anyhow, the good news is that once you have it sorted out, it's not likely to recur - and if it does, you'll know what to do!

-sounddevisor

[Reptil]

krakataktaktaktaktak....taktaktaktak

WORST BUY OF 2005
screw lacie and all their muck

[Jetblack]

My Lacie D2 did that as well. Rather frustrating error, but thankfully easily fixable. It has happened more than once though. No one at Digidesign could give me a straight answer.

[Reptil]

can you tell me how it is fixable? sounds like a hardware problem (heads bumping against the disk/case )

[Jetblack]

Sorry, I didn't mean fixable permenantly. I just meant that all you have to do is go to the Workspace menu and manually make the drive read & write. Still extremely annoying. It happened on my system running the oh so crappy PT 7.0. Is this also happening on older versions of PT?

[Reptil]

bah shame.
well thanks for the reply! I could only hope.
I wouldn't sell this harddisk to my worst enemy.
right now it's demoted to manga fansub server disk. (low but still important in the LAN foodchain here) everything is backupped, and I'm waiting till it magically turns into a paperweight.

[sounddevisor]

Reptil -

Did you read the solution to waffle waitress's problem (above)?

NOT a hardware problem - it's a problem with Pro Tools (possibly in combination with Mac OS X - I don't know if this occurs with Windows or not).

LaCie is NOT the problem. I have had nothing but good luck with LaCie D2 drives - unlike the Maxtors I used to buy, which have universally, catastrophically, failed.


Jetblack -

I have experienced this problem with Pro Tools 6 (6.4.1, personally, other versions of PT reported to me by others).

-sounddevisor

[gem]

something similar started to happen to my lacie drive too!
it does not get mounted sometimes when i plug it in!
i have to try several times and then it will be mounted again.
this is with windows.

a friends lacie just broke down.
he lost most files.it would just not work anymore.
it was laying on his desk.and one day....

curious which hds are built in these lacie.

[turk sanchez]

reptil...you may be on to something...Before this happened I had started to notice more/odd drive noise.

I used it the other afternoon to do an import and a mix and bouced to disc etc...came back later that night to do the same thing with another session and the drive isssue was there.

And once again thanks to sounddevisor for solving my problem.

I used it tonight for another import/mix with no problems. And yes...I am using Pro Tools so maybe there was some beef between my Apple and the 002r/software...

[Reptil]

I understand the problem above, experienced a simular situation here, but just running it under the OS (can't run it together with my Fireface because of nasty firewire bus distortion )
I have to run Diskwarrior periodically to repair permissions and even directory info on the LaCie. To me it seems, my problem is hardware, that translates into software faults. This premission is lately backed up by loud noises coming from the unit itself.

dfegad lacie dfegad d2

there is a thread about harddisks here:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php3?t=52337
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php3?t=44647

here is a disk report of Diskwarrior (highly recommended, Mac OS Disk utility failed utterly) this happens like... eh... say.... EVERY 2 DAYS

[Jetblack]

Originally Posted by gem

it does not get mounted sometimes when i plug it in!
i have to try several times and then it will be mounted again.

AAAARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!! It drives me crazy when it does that!!! I have to restart my powerbook for the disk to appear on my desktop!!

I want to use a drive repair software but I am nervous as I have heard that some of them are problematic with PT. I am using PT 7.0 (not by choice, my G4 1.67 powerbook can only run 7.0 or higher!) and an 002 R. Any recommendations?

[Reptil]

nah man, file permissions or even the files themselves can be damaged so the OS doesn't see or handle them correctly. PT floats on top of the OS, but adds permissions to those files it's using. If the PT files are damaged, PT cannot fix those. And cannot use them anymore. So you'll have to repair the shit, and re-import into PT. could be lots of work, but that is the only way.

I can recommend:
CLIX (unix commands in a list)
Diskwarrior (name says it all)
MacJanitor (mopping the unix floor)
Onyx (maintenance too)
Little Snitch (your secret friend inside INDESPENSABLE)

Those will make your computer more happy. Never mind what audio software you use.

[turk sanchez]

hey reptil... i had a client come in with a porche drive (lacie) and it had the same error right off (out of the box...new)...I tried changing it to a record volume but it could not be changed...it wouldn't take...I just did the session on the studio/house drive and copied it to the porche drive afterwards...tried the silverkeeper cd to reformat but it said it was for 0s9 only and that it should be ready to go out of the box with tiger...disc utilities would not get it either...any ideas?

[ine-kpro...]

drives can get corrupted and settings changed. i get that as well, well not the exact same problem. could be conflicting or corrupted softwares that can cause it or just the drive getting corrupted. its always safe to do a backup regularly.

[Reptil]

agreed, could be crappy software too. but some drives keep going haywire no matter what you do, or even if you don't do anything.. my LaCie is just one of those..

as for fixing the trouble, I found Diskwarrior the ONLY application that could fix it, without completely reformatting the drive. I'm sure that when I'll reformat, it will be bad blocks all over.

[Geert van den Berg]

Originally Posted by gem

something similar started to happen to my lacie drive too!
it does not get mounted sometimes when i plug it in!
i have to try several times and then it will be mounted again.
this is with windows.

a friends lacie just broke down.
he lost most files.it would just not work anymore.
it was laying on his desk.and one day....

curious which hds are built in these lacie.

Have you tried mounting the disk from the Disk Utility?

If that doesn't work the best fix is Disk Warrior.

[toolskid]

I have had nothing but trouble with Lacie
glyph GT050s now - waaay more expensive, but they're solid + no more proprietry power adaptors

[voiceoverguy]

Originally Posted by sounddevisor

waffle waitress -

Your drive is fine - no need to reformat.
You need to go into the "Workspace" window in Pro Tools, and set the drive to be a "record" drive - it should be pretty easy to figure it out once you have that window open. I think the available options are r (record,) p (playback,) and t (transfer)

-sounddevisor

sounddevisor and anyone else who may know-

First of all, great forum you have here. Secondly, I was having the exact same problem as waffle waitress, and upon trying to set my Lacie to "record" I continually get a pop-up stating that "Lacie195 is not a valid audio drive". It will however, let me change the video settings. I rely heavily on my Mac as an audio engineer/voice over guy and need to solve this asap. I have upgraded from a G4 dual processor to a G5 powermac quad, along with a Belkin UPS tower 1500A. I don't know if this is related to my problem, but I thought I would mention it.

How do I get my Mac to recognize my Lacie as a valid audio drive?

Thank you in advance.

Mark

[Reptil]

it's dead now

[Reptil]

Mark, my Lacie had difficulties when it was still alive and not yet doing TAKTAKTAK, with streaming audio and video. trying to burn cds gave nothing but errors. If you are going to rely on it, you can be in a world of trouble. (or not, if you're lucky)
So if I were you, I'd trade it for another internal Seagate, while you still have guarantee. If it doesn't work as supposed, it's no good, isn't it?

Try Diskwarrior first. that will give you an indication of the state of the POS.

good luck and welcome to the board.

[voiceoverguy]

Thank you, Reptil. A Seagate is definitely on my short list of upgrades within
the immediate future. Any suggestions on an online seller?

The good news is, I re-installed the Pro Tools 6.9.2 updated and voila! Problem
solved. Whew. That honestly had me frightened for about 6 hours.

Considering I've had my Lacie for about 5 years (all the while dealing with it's intermittent powering down at random issues), I think I've been pretty lucky so
far with it. I need something I can depend on day in and day out. Time for
a Seagate. Thanks for the advice!

[Reptil]

no, sorry no suggestions. I'm in a different corner of the woods..
your lacie is probably one of the older, better versions. an 8 year old scsi disk is still running fine here, is not used much, but it says a little bit about some older disks.
modern lacie are dropping like flies anyway
glad you could solve your problem.

[David Robinson]

have bought two lacie products in mid 2005 - both were faulty.
DVD burner lasted 75 burns.
external fw 160gig refuses to mount anymore.
have had very harsh words with lacie here in Sydney. will be ringing head office O/S
very soon to sort this out.