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  1. Член BJ_M's Avatar
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    hate to say - but i mentioned about cheap fans .
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  2. I don't blame you . I am just trying to warn followers....
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  3. I wonder why you didn't buy the DRX500UL. It is $90 different and you get another firewire cable.

    CN
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  4. Member The village idiot's Avatar
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    If it were me, I wouldn't sweat the fan. Fans are cheap, and normally easy to replace. Just find one and order it, then when the first one gives up, or you get worried, replace the sucker.
    Hope is the trap the world sets for you every night when you go to sleep and the only reason you have to get up in the morning is the hope that this day, things will get better... But they never do, do they?
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  5. The village idiot, Thanks... I'll do that. Again this update was just to let people know that this might be problem later...

    caulnguyen, Answer is realy simple and I answered it couple of posts ago:

    Couple of reasons.

    1. At the time when I bought mine, ther was no external version.

    2. This way I can choose internel/external. Whatever make sence at time.

    3. I can use enclosure for any IDE drive if I need.
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  6. Member The village idiot's Avatar
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    Just wanted to add that you can get into some trouble with this flashing utility. And you can fix it by reading the PDF that comes with the software, and then for clarity reading this thread:

    https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=183386
    Hope is the trap the world sets for you every night when you go to sleep and the only reason you have to get up in the morning is the hope that this day, things will get better... But they never do, do they?
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  7. BIG QUESTION!
    Am I correnct in assuming that the difficulties mentioned in this thread with various external firewire enclosures would be avoided completely by purchasing and OEM external DVD burner, such as the Sony DRX510a?
    Milt
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  8. Member The village idiot's Avatar
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    Possibly. But also realise that these posts were mostly made in the darker ages of the firwire enclosures. Now most any box should have good firmware that you won't have to change, at least until you try messing with it to do something that isn't possible in the first place. You should be very safe buying a good quality box with the Oxford911 chip. The firewire800 stuff might be a little on the cutting edge to save you from some problems, but firewire400 should be just fine by now.


    I was just looking for a way to do something that just can not be done, and messed up my enclosure, and now all is good. The newer external burners should all be fine.
    Hope is the trap the world sets for you every night when you go to sleep and the only reason you have to get up in the morning is the hope that this day, things will get better... But they never do, do they?
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  9. This is my very old post BTW, it is still working

    At the time I had internal IDE burner and I realized that I need to have mobile one so I did what is in this post.

    BTW2: I am planing to buy enclosure for my old hard drives since I am planning to add new SATA HD to my PC.
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    Last week I upgraded the firmware of my external firewire cases. They are based on the Oxford 911 chipset. The oldest case is hosting a slower 40 GB Maxtor drive. The newer one was bought this year and is hosting my HP DVD200i.

    The case of the Maxtor hard disk had a very old firmware, lacking version time stamp. The newer case had a firmware dating December 2002.

    Both cases were upgrated to a January 2003 Oxford 911 firmware. After tweaking some parameters the hard disk has a farter transfer rate. The DVD burner behaves exactly the same as before.
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    Does anyone know if there's a good website or user forum out there dedicated to Firewire topics? I've had a terrible time finding good information about performance tweaking, product reviews, etc. This is by far the most informative discussion on anything Firewire-related that I've seen in months (and given the dates on the earlier posts, it was probably this same thread )

    Also, where can one find the latest Oxford 911 firmware? I have the Maxtor one posted earlier but wouldn't mind trying something newer to see if it improves performance.
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  12. Член BJ_M's Avatar
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    post deleted - firmware no longer there ..
    "Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems." - Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
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    *** Edited on 2-FEB-2004 ***

    I upgraded my Oxford 911 firewire cases to OXFW911 Firmware 3.7 using the following file:

    http://www.triumphtech.com/Driver/Oxford160GB.zip

    The ROM file that I used was the one named "fw20030127.bin". With my older case I also tested the following two earlier ROM files: fw20020211.bin and fw20020104.bin.

    My older case didn't have any problem during the firmware upgrade process, but with the newer case, the upgrade failed and I had to use the fw9.exe to recover from the failure by running the Production.bat batch script.

    The batch file Production.bat uses fw9.exe in order to clean and then upload a 911 firmware uploader (fw911upload.bin). This batch file will result in an OXFW911 device reverting to its post-production state, from which it can be programmed in either normal or production mode by FwUpload.exe.
    Then I just used the regular FwUpload.exe ("Firmware & configuration Upload Utility") to try the firmware upgrade for a second time. This time the case finally accepted the latest firmware. Finally I just had to tweak the Oxford 911 to fit my needs. I set the use to CD/DVD, changed the chip type from 900 to 911 and enable ATA speeds.

    Good luck and happy flashing.
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    I found Oxford 911 firmware V3.8 (dated 22-JUL-2003). This version could be downloaded from the MacAlly drivers web page, for both MAC and PC platform.

    http://www.macally.com/techsupport/drivers.html

    To install this patch you have two options, the new JAVA firmware upload tool or the old "Firmware & configuration Upload Utility". The new Java tool is available in the MacAlly web page. The older tool is bundled with the aging 3.7 firmware files found in here: http://www.triumphtech.com/Driver/Oxford160GB.zip

    For the new 822 bridge you should use the JAVA tool only. For the older 900 and 911 chipset you could use either one.

    Since my two cases are based on the 911 chipset and I already had installed the "Firmware & configuration Upload Utility", I did not bother installing the newer JAVA tool.

    In the previous version of the firmware (3.7, dated 27-JAN-2003) we had the following improvements:

    * ATA-6 master and slave (dual drive) capability is supported when hardware modification is present.

    * Hardware modification presence is automatically detected.

    * If no hardware modification found, switch to ATA-5 reporting (128GB max).

    * If no hardware modification found, but one or two vendor specific (nonstandard) ATA-6 drives are present, use the vendor specific operation to allow ATA-6 capability.

    * New CSRs introduced, reporting whether hardware modification is present and whether standard or vendor specific ATA-6 operation is used.
    Note: Oxford 911 support for Maxtor 160 GB was added since firmware version 3.1 (dated 11-FEB-2002) by implementing a proprietary 48 Bit disk access (not real ATA-6).

    I have not seen official oxford information regarding the improvements of the newer 3.8 firmware (dated 22-JUL-2003), but it looks like it includes some fixes that could prevent a problem that affects Mac OS X 10.3 through Mac OS X 10.3.2 (Panther) where certain conditions could lead data corruption on firewire hard drives. This problem has not been confirmed for 811 chipset. It does affect 822 bridges for sure.

    Note: for 822 bridges you have to upgrade to firmware 1.05 to eliminate prevent data corruption of firewire disk connected to MAC Panther systems. For more informatin visit this link: http://www.macmaps.com/firewirebug.html

    I upgraded both of my cases to version 3.8 of the firmware. For my older case (has a 40 GB Maxtor disk) the upgrade was smooth. It accepted the new firmware and everything was just fine.

    With my newer case (Used with a HP DVD200i) the flash failed, but I recover quickly with the help of the FW9.EXE tool. I just executed the Production.bat batch scrip that set my case to post-production state. After this I just uploaded the firmware with the "Firmware & configuration Upload Utility". This time my case accepted the newer firmware without issues.

    Finally I changed the Oxford 911 parameters to reflect the use of this particular case. I set up the use to CD/DVD and enabled ATA support for the MASTER Drive. I also changed the chip type from 900 to 911

    I cannot said that this upgrade improved the performance of my system, but I now that it work properly.
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  15. Member The village idiot's Avatar
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    Thanks for the update!
    Hope is the trap the world sets for you every night when you go to sleep and the only reason you have to get up in the morning is the hope that this day, things will get better... But they never do, do they?
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  16. Member
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    There is another interesting post on the need for Oxford based cases firmware upgrade. Please take a look at this link: https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=263734

    Remember to read the web page in http://www.bustrace.com/products/delayedwrite.htm and http://fwdepot.com/firewiredepot/firmware/firmware.html because they contain a detailed list of problem and fixes for several firewire cases. Thanks a lot Soopafresh for sharing these two links.

    The most recent Oxford 911 firmware file to date is version 4.0 and it was released on October 2004. Get it in here: http://fwdepot.com/firewiredepot/firmware/FW911_V4_00_0000_Release.bin
    Its is not clear what the improvements are, but some people have reported that several problems related with hard disk corruption (due 1394 Delayed Write Failures) have been corrected after the firmware upgrade. So if you are using WXP SP2 it is very important to upgrade.

    I flashed my two firewire cases from version 3.8 to version 4.0 using the older “OXFW900/911 Firmware & Configuration Upload Utility v4.12” (not the java tool) that came bundled in this file: http://www.triumphtech.com/Driver/Oxford160GB.zip

    *** EDIT: 7-SEP-2006 ***
    Updated link for triumphtech Oxford 911 firmware



    Note: If you have an oxford case with a newer chipset like the 912 or 922, only use the Java firmware upgrade tool. You can get it in here here: http://fwdepot.com/firewiredepot/xp_updater_1_64.1.zip


    Newer Oxford 912 and Oxford 922 firmware (as well as for the 911) could be found in here: http://fwdepot.com/firewiredepot/firmware/firmware.html

    Newer Initio 1430 firmware could be found in here: http://www.initio.com/support/1430/1430support.htm

    Newer Prolific chipset firmware:
    http://tech.prolific.com.tw/visitor/v_filebrw.asp


    *** EDIT: 7-SEP-2006 ***
    Prolific does not provice firmware upgrades anymore


    Finally some people have reported that hard disk corruption could occur if a drive was daisy-chained as a second device on the firewire bus, and the first device malfunctioned. Therefore it is recommended to connect all hard disks to different ports in the firewire card or firewire hub. This is especially important for people with firewire disk arrays.
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  17. Member Skith's Avatar
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    There is a huge thread over at CDFreaks link.
    It is a lot to go through, but there is a lot of good info.

    I would recommend getting a USB2.0/firewire combo case. USB 2.0 should be plenty fast for the DRU500 (firewire is still better, but it is good to have an alternative).
    Some people say dog is mans best friend. I say that man is dog's best slave... At least that is what my dogs think.
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  18. Member
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    Final comment on firmware available for different cases and chipsets

    If you have an ADS Pyro DV drive, you could update it's firmware using Shining Technology, Inc. firmware for FW1256C CitiDISK DV - FireWire drive.

    You can get the upgrade tool and latest firmware from here:

    http://www.shining.com/support/drivers/
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    Hi ofbarea,

    are you yet existing in the VIDEOHelp.com Forum?
    I have a question to your post from Feb 02, 2004. In your QUOTE I can read:

    * If no hardware modification found, but one or two vendor specific (nonstandard) ATA-6 drives are present, use the vendor specific operation to allow ATA-6 capability.

    Exactly this is my problem.

    I must substitute a defective Maxtor 250GB HDD in a firewire external enclosure with the Oxford911 chipset.
    I have bought a Western Digital 500GB ATA-6 IDE drive.

    The hardware mod from Maxtor worked good with the Maxtor drive, but not for the WD drive. I see only 128GB.

    I have searched a long time for a hardware mod or a vendor specific operation from Western Digital for the
    Oxford911 but found nothing.

    Do you know existing mods other than Maxtor, especially a mod from Western Digital?

    czer27
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  20. Member
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    Hi there. Unfortunately the original Oxford 911 base cases did not include support for standard ATA-6 drives. Since WD did not partner with Oxford, there is no non-standard support for WD drivers bigger than 128 GB.

    By today standards Original Oxford 911 cases are pretty much limited. Even though they are still very reliable, they no longer have a performance advantage and finding compatible big disk is becoming a daunting task. Perhaps is time to let it go, and get something newer.

    My two old 911 cases still work fine. One of them has a 120 GB Seagate hard disk and the other is driving a DVD burner with lightscribe.
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