drive problems on os x

May 17, 2005 4:49 PM

Arrgh. I just installed the new DVD Player of OS X and it hung up on Optimizing Performance. I ended up having to reboot and when I did both my Lacie 160 firewire drive and iPod are DEAD!

When I plug the Lacie in it tells me "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer - initialize, ignore, eject". The iPod's getting a battery flashing with a ! symbol over it (but I know it's fully charged). Goddamnit! Any suggestions? The iPod is literally ending in an auction on eBay in 5 mins. I tried to cancel the auction but it won't let me. Fuck.

posted by dobbs to Technology (15 answers total)

Try resetting the Lacie and the iPod. I don't own either so I don't know what the specific procedures are. Take a deep breath, they're just pieces of plastic and metal (though expensive ones).

Also, check them out on another computer.

There is almost certainly nothing physically wrong with your disks (aside from a possible loss of data).
posted by onalark at 5:15 PM on May 17, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks.

I reset the iPod and it's no use -- keeps flashing the symbol.

I don't know how to reset the drive outside of turning it off and on and that didn't help. I don't have another computer to check the Lacie on and don't know anyone else with a Mac.

In the case of the Lacie, it's the data I'm concerned about as I didn't have a complete backup. (I know, I know). 3000+ albums. Arrgh!
posted by dobbs at 5:19 PM on May 17, 2005

You should be able to at least see if the hard disk is recognizable on another computer (connect it to Windows machine, Windows goes "Hey unformatted hard drive, wtf? Format?" then you say no)

Stay calm, there have been a LOT of problems with mass storage devices (hard drives, iPods) with the latest round of system update rollouts from Apple.

Are you running Tiger? Have you tried reinstalling the DVD Player? Information that's going to help Metafilter help you is the model type/number of your Apple and the current O/S you're running.
posted by onalark at 5:24 PM on May 17, 2005

Response by poster: It's an iMac G5 and the latest version of Tiger, completely up to date.

"Hey unformatted hard drive, wtf? Format?"

This is what the Mac is telling me, no?

Just to be clear, I feel the Lacie would reformat no prob but I want the data.

I have not tried reinstalling the DVD Player (to be clear, I was talking about the software DVD Player (apple), not a physical dvd player). It's in the software updates right now (though obviously I don't reccomend you try it).

I just went back into the Software Update section of System Preferences and ran a check and it tells me I'm up to date so I assume that it installed fully even though it hung for me at "optimizing performance".
posted by dobbs at 5:29 PM on May 17, 2005

Start here for fixing your iPod.
posted by onalark at 5:34 PM on May 17, 2005

Impressively, it looks like Optimizing Performance (which is really doing a disk defragment), managed to bork two hard drives at once, be glad it didn't get your main hard drive too. Sorry I needed to reread your first post. It looks like you may want to run a disk recovery utility on the Lacie. I can't recommend a good recovery software but I'm sure some Mac folks stopping on by through the day will.
posted by onalark at 5:40 PM on May 17, 2005

I'd say something else happened, and that Optimizing System Performance was just the third casualty, or perhaps showed up a defect that was already there. Can't suggest what though.
posted by cillit bang at 6:20 PM on May 17, 2005

Best answer: Does the Disk Utility application (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility) show the iPod or Lacie drive at all, albeit unmounted? If it does, you should be able to run disk repair on them.
posted by bitpart at 6:45 PM on May 17, 2005

You might have tried this already, but physically unplug the lacie from the mac. then unplug its power. reboot the mac. when it restarts power on your lacie and then plug it into the FW port on the mac.

hopefully it will mount the drive. if not check out macfixit. there might be someone there that can help.

check in the system profiler (in the utilities folder) and see if the hard drive shows up under firewire.

best of luck.
posted by birdherder at 6:50 PM on May 17, 2005

Response by poster: Phew, okay, I got the Lacie back with Disk Utility thanks to a friend on the phone. (Bitpart, you were right, it was listed as unmounted and had some errors...)

However, the iPod's still screwed and is not showing up in DU. This is the symbol on the iPod and I tried everything on that page but nothing works.

When I reset it, I get that symbol immediately after the Apple logo (which is staying up for a fraction of the usual reset time--and I can't go into diagnostics.
posted by dobbs at 6:50 PM on May 17, 2005

Response by poster: Oops, this is the symbol on the iPod (the second one with the battery). I know for certain the battery has a full charge. iPod is not appearing in System Profiler.
posted by dobbs at 6:52 PM on May 17, 2005

Response by poster: iPod is back! (I had it plugged into the USB 2 port, not firewire).

It's now recharging so we'll see if it comes back to life. However, it seems F'd to me that whatever happened could completely drain a full battery. wtf?
posted by dobbs at 6:59 PM on May 17, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks, all! It appears that everything's back to normal. Man, was I freaked!
posted by dobbs at 10:48 PM on May 17, 2005

I own a 250GB Lacie firewire drive + 2 iPods -- so far so good but stories like this make me crap my pants
posted by matteo at 10:09 AM on May 18, 2005

Response by poster: matteo, everyone I spoke to about it since last night said that you should disconnect all drives/ipods when adding software of any kind. I've never heard this before but for sure I'll be doing it from now on.
posted by dobbs at 2:58 PM on May 18, 2005