Red Drive won't mount

[Sean]

We've tested the Red RAID a few times, and it worked beautifully, both for recording and when connected to my NLE (PC).

But now, all of a sudden, when I plug the RAID into my computer it won't mount. No sign of the drive. No sign of the files. Of course I wondered if the problem was with the computer itself, except that I've also tried connecting the Red Drive to my laptop via firewire as well, and there's no drive showing up.

I've double-checked my computer by connecting external firewire drives, and they're all working.

I re-connected the Red Drive to the camera, re-formatted, and re-recorded a test shot. The shot plays back in-camera (on the Red LCD) just fine. So it's recording, and REd can read it. But again, when I attach the drive to my computer and my laptop, I'm not getting anything.

Any suggestions? I just upgraded the firmware to Build 15. Would that affect what gets written to the Red Drive?

[Jarred Land]

have you tried to use the power adapter along with the firewire?

[Sean]

Yes, I have tried that.

I do notice that the drive is powering on via firewire without the power adapter. But I've tried the power adapter anyhow.

The Red Drive seems to be actively shutting down my firewire operations. That is, if I have a second firewire device (e.g., a Lacie RAID) attached via firewire, plugging in the Red Raid will shut down access to the Lacie. Note that the Red Raid is not showing up even when it is the only device attached via firewire.

As another test, I just used a firewire 800-to-400 adapter and used that with the firewire drive. And after a long delay, the Red Drive DOES show up, but only via that firewire 800 port (using the adapter).

It seems that something in the firmware of the drive has become corrupted and the firewire 400 port is no longer working (and it was working so well before--flawless playback of r3d files directly from the Red Drive). Hm...

[Deanan]

Please file a report with Tech Support also.

A couple of questions to clarify things:
It does not work with FW400 on drive to FW400 on your computer.
It does work with FW800 on drive to FW400 on your computer.
Does USB work?
Can you try it on a PC also with FW400 and/or usb?

Sometimes FAT32 does take a while to show up on mac/pc with larger
filesystems.

[wshultz]

And of course the obvious reboot of your computer? I've had a couple times when the OS refused to see the drive after it was ejected and then reconnected no matter what I tried. Rebooting solved the problem.

[Sean]

Please file a report with Tech Support also.

A couple of questions to clarify things:
It does not work with FW400 on drive to FW400 on your computer.
It does work with FW800 on drive to FW400 on your computer.
Does USB work?
Can you try it on a PC also with FW400 and/or usb?

Sometimes FAT32 does take a while to show up on mac/pc with larger
filesystems.

Correct, it does NOT work with FW400 on drive to FW400 on computer.

Correct, it DOES work with FW800 on drive to FW400 on computer.

Finally found a USB cable that fits the mini-USB jack on the Red Drive (it's the kind of jack usually found on digital still cameras--I knew I'd seen it somewhere!). And yes, the Red Drive DOES mount on my computer via USB.

All my tests have been on PC. I tried leaving the Red Drive plugged into the PC via FW400 for 20 minutes without any luck having it appear (and all previous uses of the drive prior to today, the drive was recognized instantly via FW400).

So I should have tried those other ports before reformatting (didn't lose anything critical on the drive, but would LIKE to have kept a few of those files--lesson learned). I'll open a tech support ticket as suggested.

And of course the obvious reboot of your computer? I've had a couple times when the OS refused to see the drive after it was ejected and then reconnected no matter what I tried. Rebooting solved the problem.

Yes, rebooting does sometimes solve mounting issues with drives. Half a dozen re-boots haven't got this one going, however. Also note that it's been tested on two separate computers, only to find that the drive isn't mounting via FW400 on either.

[Mark L. Pederson]

Remember, as stated FAT32 does take a little longer to show up.

Ian had the same issue yesterday - USB mounted no problem.

Always carry a USB cable in the field.

[Dave Neathery]

I always make sure to have both the power adapter and the firewire connectors in hand and then plug in the adapter and as soon as possible the firewire. Once I started doing this, it recognized the drive everytime. Before that I had problems getting the PC to mount the drive.

[Stuart English]

But now, all of a sudden ....there's no drive showing up.

Any suggestions? I just upgraded the firmware to Build 15. Would that affect what gets written to the Red Drive?

What's written to the RED-DRIVE is basically the same. Although it sounds like a FW driver issue as USB appears to be O.K, one question that might have an impact on camera firmware is: did you re-format the RED-DRIVE when you went from the earlier build to later build?

[Sean]

What's written to the RED-DRIVE is basically the same. Although it sounds like a FW driver issue as USB appears to be O.K, one question that might have an impact on camera firmware is: did you re-format the RED-DRIVE when you went from the earlier build to later build?

Thanks for the thoughts. No I didn't reformat the RED DRIVE between build 14 and 15. It is now reformatted under new build, but that hasn't changed the issue of the drive not mounting under FW400.