Last night, I ran out and got Tiger at the local Apple Store. I just want to tell you all of my disasterous experience as a "don't let this happen to you." As some of you may know, I have two striped internal 250s, resulting in a half a terabyte partition. I also have a 500 gig LaCie firewire drive. Generally I keep the system, apps, and files for projects I'm currently working on on the internal hdd. The fw drive is for archives, backups, less frequently used files, and daily / weekly DaniWeb db backups.

What always seems to happen to me everytime I install a new OS, is I like to dig deep into all its new features, and play around for a couple of days, seeing what's changed and experimenting. Usually the first install of a new OS doesn't last longer than a week before I've royally screwed something up, at which time I'll do a clean format, and keep that system pristine for months 'n' months 'n' months (now that I've gotten the kid with a new toy syndrome out of my system). It just always seems to take two times with me with a new OS

So, in any case, I figured I'd do a regular upgrade to Panther, play around for awhile, seeing how Tiger handles all of my apps and such. Then, do a clean reformat either the next day or in a couple of days.

Even though I was doing an upgrade, I just wanted to be on the safe side, and I backed everything (including email inboxes) up to my LaCie. I then unmounted the LaCie and did an upgrade.

Little did I know that it is disasterous to do any type of system update or OS upgrade with external devices plugged in! It's not enough that they be unmounted - they cannot be physically connected to the computer.

Needless to say, the Upgrade didn't go smoothly at all. The newly upgraded system was extraordinarily unstable, and my LaCie's directory structure was screwed up.

I did a clean format into Tiger, and got the system working good. Still no LaCie - it was able to detect the drive but couldn't mount the partition due to hdd errors. Disk Doctor did nothing. LUCKILY I had previously reformatted my LaCie disk to use a journaling file system (by default it doesn't) and DiskWarrior was able to rescue the drive.

And now everything is all working and I'm happy ... but just a warning to you guys!

Strange. My installs of Tiger went just fine with 2 LaCie FW drives hanging off the Qwoosh. Maybe I'm lucky.

I had similar problems with Tiger and a 300GB Maxtor drive (Firewire/USB version). Essentially, after upgrading from Panther to Tiger, the Maxtor drive would no longer mount to the G4 iMac that it was attached to when the upgrade was done. Fortunately, the drive would mount on a G4 Powerbook. Since the amount of data was large, I bought a new Seagate 300GB hard drive (also firewire or USB) to back up the information on the Maxtor drive.

After visiting the Maxtor website, I learned that Maxtor's backup software that worked fine with Panther specifically WILL NOT work with Tiger. So, I downloaded the update and became ever more concerned about having made the mistake of upgrading to Tiger prematurely.

This evening Peak LE (the audio mastering software) hung while trying to write a file to the new Seagate drive. The result of this hang is that the partition on the Seagate drive will not only not mount, it also can't be repaired by Disk Utility.

Any suggestions on how to restore this partition would be appreciated.

Unfortunatly, I have come to the conclusion that it is premature to upgrade to Tiger. Wait until Apple fixes the problems with firewire drives.

I must say, I'm not entirely sure this is a problem with Tiger and firewire drives. I've now moved about 30 Macs of various types, many with firewire drives, from Jaguar/Panther to Tiger. Not a single problem with a firewire device yet.

Maybe one distinction would be that I don't trust the "Upgrade" option, and all Macs get an Archive & Install.

Hello,

I am hoping to do Tiger soon in my life, but my hardware is SCSI / USB from 1999, and I would not see any firewire devices in anything that I do.

I also do not upgrade, not even on Linux! I go for the long-term installations of OS software (Have had said laptop since 1999, and only rebuilt it a handful of times for OS Upgrades, and the one time I lost the hard drive).

Catch you all later,

Christian

I have 3 terabyte drives (Bigger disks) on my G5 running Tiger (4.0 and even 4.1), and they are constantly kernel panicking me when copying a lot of files to or from them. :evil:

Here's one log (sent to Apple):

panic(cpu 0 caller 0x00E1BAEC): DART entry exception: HyperTransport write logical page 0x012E1

Latest stack backtrace for cpu 0:
Backtrace:
0x00095564 0x00095A7C 0x0002683C 0x00E1BAEC 0x00D38D70 0x00D38DA8 0x006D6048 0x002CE10C
0x002CCFD4 0x000A9694
Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.driver.AppleGPIO(1.1.8)@0xd36000
dependency: com.apple.driver.IOPlatformFunction(1.7.0b1)@0x549000
com.apple.driver.MacIOGPIO(1.1.8)@0x6d4000
com.apple.driver.AppleMacRISC4PE(1.6.0d9)@0xe15000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(1.6)@0x473000
dependency: com.apple.driver.IOPlatformFunction(1.7.0b1)@0x549000
Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x012ACC80)
PC=0x00000000; MSR=0x0000D030; DAR=0x00000000; DSISR=0x00000000; LR=0x00000000; R1=0x00000000; XCP=0x00000000 (Unknown)

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.1.0: Tue May 10 18:16:08 PDT 2005; root:xnu-792.1.5.obj~4/RELEASE_PPCModel: PowerMac7,3, BootROM 5.1.8f7, 2 processors, PowerPC G5 (3.0), 2.5 GHz, 4 GB
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, GeForce 6800 Ultra, AGP, 256 MB
Memory Module: DIMM0/J11, 512 MB, DDR SDRAM, PC3200U-30330
Memory Module: DIMM1/J12, 512 MB, DDR SDRAM, PC3200U-30330
Memory Module: DIMM2/J13, 512 MB, DDR SDRAM, PC3200U-30330
Memory Module: DIMM3/J14, 512 MB, DDR SDRAM, PC3200U-30330
Memory Module: DIMM4/J41, 512 MB, DDR SDRAM, PC3200U-30330
Memory Module: DIMM5/J42, 512 MB, DDR SDRAM, PC3200U-30330
Memory Module: DIMM6/J43, 512 MB, DDR SDRAM, PC3200U-30330
Memory Module: DIMM7/J44, 512 MB, DDR SDRAM, PC3200U-30330
AirPort: AirPort Extreme, 3.5f1 (3.50.37.p6)
Modem: Jump, , V.92, Version 1.0,
Bluetooth: Version 1.6.0f2, 2 service, 1 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Network Service: Built-in Ethernet, Ethernet, en0
Serial ATA Device: Maxtor 7Y250M0, 233.76 GB
Serial ATA Device: Maxtor 7Y250M0, 233.76 GB
Parallel ATA Device: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-117D,
USB Device: iPod, Apple, Up to 480 Mb/sec, 500 mA
USB Device: Bluetooth HCI, , Up to 12 Mb/sec, 500 mA
USB Device: Hub, , Up to 12 Mb/sec, 500 mA
USB Device: EDIROL PCR, Roland, Up to 12 Mb/sec, 500 mA
USB Device: hp scanjet, Hewlett-Packard., Up to 12 Mb/sec, 500 mA
USB Device: hp LaserJet 1300, Hewlett-Packard, Up to 12 Mb/sec, 500 mA
USB Device: USB Printer, EPSON, Up to 12 Mb/sec, 500 mA
USB Device: Hub, , Up to 12 Mb/sec, 500 mA
USB Device: Hub, , Up to 12 Mb/sec, 500 mA
USB Device: Kinesis Keyboard Hub, PI Engineering, Up to 12 Mb/sec, 500 mA
USB Device: Footpedal, Kinesis, Up to 1.5 Mb/sec, 100 mA
USB Device: USB Device, , Up to 12 Mb/sec, 124 mA
USB Device: USB Receiver, Logitech, Up to 1.5 Mb/sec, 500 mA
USB Device: Studio Display, , Up to 1.5 Mb/sec, 500 mA
FireWire Device: LaCie FW800 Bigger Disk drive LUN 0, LaCie Group SA, Up to 800 Mb/sec
FireWire Device: LaCie FW800 Bigger Disk drive LUN 0, LaCie Group SA, Up to 800 Mb/sec
FireWire Device: LaCie FW800 Bigger Disk drive LUN 0, LaCie Group SA, Up to 800 Mb/sec
FireWire Device: LaCie 1394 DVD-R/RW+CD drive LUN 0., LaCie Group SA, Up to 400 Mb/sec
FireWire Device: iSight, Apple Computer, Inc., Up to 400 Mb/sec
FireWire Device: iPod, Apple Computer, Inc., Up to 400 Mb/sec
FireWire Device: unknown_device, unknown_value, Up to 400 Mb/sec

Hi,

Did you see this problem with your drives under 10.3?

Christian

I did at first (rarely), but after applying the latest firmware update from LaCie, it went away completely. :eek:

hi,

i am having problems with tiger and the LaCie hd´s as well.
i am working on a G5dual2,3GHz, using two big disk 500GB.
i have my data on one of them and use the other one for my backup.
i use the Déjà Vu software to do this for me.
using panther everything worked. since i changed to tiger i have a kernel panic. i installed the newest firmware from LaCie, but after the backup starts the computer crashes. Deja Vu by itself is not capable of causing this, as it doesn't operate at a low enough level.

so now i am waiting for the OS X 10.4.3 update...

does anybody have a clue how to solve this problem?

kaizi

sounds like the firmware upgrade on the drive...can you do a downgrade to see if that's the case? If it works, don't fix it...right?

In general, performing an OS upgrade is a sketchy thing...it's always best to do a clean install...if you have upgraded the OS previously, don't even think about applying another upgrade on top unless you enjoy computer problems...doing an upgrade on a previous clean install is a hit-or-miss thing as it is...

as far as the firewire issue goes, some firewire bridges are not well supported, if at all, under the most recent motherboard firmwares (G5's and latter G4's that have the last firmware update)...some work fine regardless of what you are doing, other work ok unless you are doing something non-rountine like an update or copying files from a network share...older firewire bridges tend to be less supported...also, try not to mix firewire devices with different bridges on the same bus...I have seen this time and again - you run a high risk of lossing data on one or more external drives...if you absolutely need to use mixed drives, invest in a firewire PCI card and keep them on completely seperate busses