Buffalo Forums

   Hi - am using DS Combo 4 1 tb with Imac 24.  Tried searching forum but didn't see similar prob. With either Fat32 orig format or Mac OS extended (journaled) format, drive on and mounted... if machine sleeps will not wake up with drive on.  I then power drive off (mac is on entire time), machine will wakeup and alert that improperly unmounted drive (normal alert).  Then power drive back on, it mounts and reads/writes just fine.  No problem with read/write or transfer before or after lockup, just locks up machine on sleep.  Any suggestions?  tia mpw

   To amplify. Should have mentioned, have this formatted (mac os extended (journaled)) as one, almost 1 tb, partition, and am running Leopard with all the latest updates.  Mac seems to read, and verify entire disk so no indications that partition size is a problem, thus didnt think that an issue with my freeze-up.  mpw

   

Are you using firewire 800 by any chance? I'm having a problem with mine with firewire800 hanging my iMac untill i turn the drive off, it seems ok with firewire400 however

 

 

   Thanks.  Yes it is fw800.  I havent tried fw400 but will check it out.  Even with 800 the transfer r/w is great - am using for video storage - just seems to hang up sleep and reboot.  Anyone else having a similar problem?  This is a bummer because fw800 is one of the reasons why I went with this particular drive.

   Thats the reason I bought it as well. I ran an integrity test via fw800, fw400 and usb and the fw800 failed but the fw400 and usb had no errors. Are you using the cable that came boxed with the hdd?

   Yes am using the bundled fw800 cable that came with the combo 4 drive.  I am trying to find the fw400 cable (just moved my office), will see if similar to your experience.  Have you tried another cable? Can you describe the integrity test that you did?  Will try myself when I find my cable. thanks.

   Used Drivw Genius 2 and got good integrity test with both FW800 & 400 cables, although constancy of integrity was better with FW400.  Still having the freeze up problem with either cable.  Now trying usb.  Am going to purchase another FW (either) to try and trouble shoot.  Again, drive and MAC combo will not survive a sleep.  Locks up Mac with blue screen. Must power MAC off with on/off, turn off drive, repower MAC repower drive, works just fine.  Any other thoughts out there?

   FYI - resized partition yielding 2 ~ 500 G drives.  Now with any of the three cables, mac/drive combo will survive sleep and restart. Any thoughts or similar experiences?  Not a solved problem but a workaround.

   

I am also having the same problem. I do have more than one FW800 device and the other hard drive doesn't have any issues (and it is a 1.5TB OEM). Some minimal testing seems to show that using the FW800 -> FW400 cable doesn't cause the DriveStation to lock up the Mac. So I currently have it as Mac -> FW800 -> Other Drive -> FW800 cable FW400 -> DriveStation. I was hoping it was just a sleep issue, but it seems to be something more complicated.

 

Kinda sucks. I liked the speed bump of FW800.

 

 

   

I also have this same problem and even the partition doesn't help.

Switching from FW800 to FW400 Helped a bit, but occasionally my Finder still freezes and there is no other fix than disconnecting the FireWire cable from my iMac.

 

If there is no fix to this, I will personally never buy another Buffalo product myself.

And even if a fix appears, I probably wont buy from Buffalo, because of all the hassle and data loss I've gotten from using this drive. 

I am currently testing this issue at the moment.  Hopefully I will be able to find the main source of the lockup and talk to our developers and see what kind of solution we can release.  Hopefully this can be taken care soon.  If you have any specific information regarding this issue please email it to info@buffalotech.com and in the subject line put DS COMBO 4 Mac Lockup.

 

Thanks,

 

Kameran

   

What revision of firmware is on the DS Combo4?

Did the issue start with OS10.6, or was it happening with 10.5.8 and 10.5.7?

   

Sorry Buffalo..  Just purchased this drive for my Macbook pro running Snow Leopard 10.6.1 and the same issue for me also.

 

Is there a fix in the pipeline?? because i feel i just wasted a good deal of money and I bought the drive in Thailand and it's really hard to get your money back so i'm kinda stuck with it.

 

How do i check the revision? 

   to find LinkStation FW revision, start up Nasnavi or Linknavi, select your LS and the FW revision will be identified in the bottom half of screen.

   

I can't locate any of those pieces of software for 'DRIVE'station combo 4, nothing in the downloads section....

 

Next? 

   Sorry, forgot we were on DriveStation, instead of Tera/LinkStatiion and we don't have a similar utility for DriveStation. It appears we are on the original revision of firmware for DS Combo 4. Just send all the details you can and I'll keep on our engineers in Japan, daily, for updates.

   

Macbook Pro late 2009 revision

Snow Leopard 10.6.1

 

After a few minutes the 1TB Drive Station Combo4 sleeps and becomes unresponsive using firewire800.  I have tested the drive under USB and eSATA with no problems.

 

Currently avoiding this problem using Mosaic International's No Spin application which stops drives spinning down (certainly not an ideal situation)

 

Just let me know if there is anymore information you need. 

   

I use a new Mac Mini with snow leopard.

 

My Drive Station Combo 4 1 tb used to mount via firewire 800, but it would unmount when my mac went to sleep.  I switched to USB and got the same behavior. 

 

Now my mac does not recognize the drive at all.  It does not mount and it does not show up in Disk Utility.

 

Will you folks be writing a functioning driver for this unit?  Any idea when?

 

Thanks!

 

   

I've been having this problem for quite some time, and have taken to leaving the drive unit off except when I really need to use the info on it. Which is a pain, I use one partition as the backup of my iMac's internal drive ... so I have to remember to turn it on before each regularly scheduled backup.

 

Here's the info from Apple's profiler:

 

  Manufacturer:     BUFFALO INC.

  Model:            0x0

  GUID:             0x402603E00909A8

  Maximum Speed:    Up to 800 Mb/sec

  Connection Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec

  Sub-units:

HDD Unit:

  Unit Software Version:  0x10483

  Unit Spec ID:           0x609E

  Firmware Revision:      0x110

  Product Revision Level: 1AA0

 

Does that help identify the product?

 

What are the plans for fixing this issue? Or is our only solution to return the units under warranty?

   

Any updates to this? I just purchased a 1TB Drivestation Combo 4 for my MAC specifically for the FW800 interface. Is there a fix or are we just working with Buffalo tech support to refund me the money I paid??

 

   

My HD-HS1.0TQ worked fine with my MacBook Pro (OS 10.4.11) and FCP Studio since I purchased the drive in november.  Not heavy use at all.  Suddenly, in the middle of a Compressor run, I got a "device was imporperly removed" message in Finder and have not been able to get the Mac to see the drive since.  Tried the ohter connections and still couldn't see it.  My ancient PC (Windows 2000) sees it and reads all the data, no problem.  But a huge problem for me.  Called the "24/7" tech support line and listened to crap music for a half hour before giving up.  Ideas?

PM me with your phone number, name, and copy in your post and I'll set up a callback from a support tech to troubleshoot. I'm travelling today, so I may not be able to set it up until tomorrow. Let's get the issue fixed.

   

I am having the exact same issue with a 3-month-old Drivestation Combo 4 using Firewire 800 purchased from Bestbuy. Please advise as to what action I should take. Thank you,

   

Guess I'll chime in with the same issue.  Mac Mini, the drive goes comatose after a sleep, using a 400-to-800 cable (didn't have another 400-to-400 cable handy, figured same difference...ha).  Was even more annoying until I figured out what was going on, because I had a bunch of 400 devices daisy-chained through the DS Combo 4, and they would all fail when the DS Combo 4 did.

 

Since I'm not actually currently using the 800 speed, I guess I should just try to find a 400 cable...

 

MPD

It sounds like the posts above have device failures or FW failure.  You need to escalate beyond the forums and contact your nearest Buffalotech support.

USA/Canada support is 1-866-752-6210