Clearinghouse on FW800 and Panther Issue

[David]

Also, a good article on the whole FW800 Panther issue.

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=2003110503170466

[Timmyjoe]

David,

Now there seems to be an issue with Panther and the FW400's. Not as widespread as the problems with the FW800's but more vexing, as Apple has not yet addressed it and people are losing all data on drives and iPods. You can see an article about this at macworld.com.
FW400 issue (http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/11/05/firewireissue/index.php?redirect=1068093534000)

-Tim

[David]

Tim:

I just read that this morning, and it did alarm me.

I'm also wondering about my FW connection from my G5 to my Sony DSR 30.

What the heck is going on.

I've got two Granite Digital Oxford 911 cases, and my spouse has an iPOD.

No problems yet. We haven't connected the iPOD, however.

[Timmyjoe]

Yeah, it's scary. I wish Apple would get a handle on it. Jobs said in an interview that Apple is going to focus on the Professional end of things in the near future, I hope they do it soon.

I am what they refer to as a late-adopter (as opposed to early-adopters) because we can not afford to not be able to get the work out. I just hope Apple takes note of this before they alienate a big portion of the folks that have kept them going for years, small business video editors.

-Tim

[David]

Tim:

One of the worst things I've seen reported is that people have backup or cloned their system drive to a FW drive, installed Panther, and then had drive unusable.

That's exactly what I did.

But god willing and the river don't rise, everything seemed to work out.

Stay away from having the externals plugged in and on, and make certain you unmount and turn off before installing stuff or shutting down the Mac in Panther.