Firewire Harddisk Problems on Clevo Notebook and WIndows XP

I have a Clevo 2700T (rebadged Excel)
I have a firewire ADS Pyro external enclosure (any of 3 hard disks) and a
Datafab MD2-FW-USB 2.5 inch enclosure and a firewire DV-8 Sony camera.
Also have 2 desktop Pc's, one with a pci firewire card (Texas chipset) and
the MB port on my other machine (MSI KT4 ultra).

I have found similar problems as you have with all my pc's and especially
with daisy-chaining the camera through the ADS drive.
Always the problem is solved by using the cable that came with the Datafab
drive.
That cable is fully screened, clear coated and has a lump of ferrite around
it at one end.
I have to put the ferrite at the pc end or the system hangs eventually.
The other cables are "generic" black plastic-coated things that came with
the ADS unit.
I also got a short 8 inch cable with something. That also doesn't work
unless I have that clear screened one at the pc end.

FYI. I can't see the use of a laptop with firewire external drive if there
is no power feed from the pc.
All internal PCI cards have feed for external accessories (like 2.5inch
drives that draw 2 watts) but my laptop didn't.
Like I keep saying to the agents "where can I find a power point for the
plugpack on the train or at the beach?????"
So I investigated the laptop. With a lot of work I eventually found that a
diode had deliberately been omitted near the connector.
On my laptop it's just a case of flipping the keyboard out and removing the
hard disk and pushing aside the plastic sheet covering the board and
carefully soldering a diode to the pads.
Now my external drive needs no power pack... Yes...
Ray Merrick




"Erwin R. Leijen" wrote in message
...
Good evening all,

Hopefully somebody can help me with the following problem:

The firewire harddisk doesn't work properly on my Clevo 5600D notebook.
Every now and then the harddisk is not recognized in Windows XP. And
when it is recognized it may happen that the drive unexpectedly
"disconnects" resulting in delayed write failures.
Erwin