Mac OS X forum: SnowLeopard and my External FireWire drive ...

just what applications are you referring to?

P

Since I bootup from the external FW hard drive is that not the Boot drive you are referring to ?

I do believe that the cause of my problem is the fact that new iMacs have only one FW 800 PORT.

I have two FW hard drives that have the "old" fashion 400 PORTS.

Therefore I had to purchase that special cable to convert from/to 800 >> 400 PORTS.



The first FW drive is connected directly to the iMac.

The second FW drive is daisy chained to the first FW drive.

For example One of the applications that is not working correctly is Digital Performer 7. It has been installed and authorized to work in the first FW drive and also installed and authorized to work in the second FW drive.

When I boot into the first FW drive and launch Digital Performer it will launch but when i shut down the application it will not quit unless i force quit. When I do the force quit salute the application shows as running and not the typical "not responding" comment.

Now when I am still booted into the first FW drive but launch Digital Performer that is installed on the second FW it works and shuts down with no problems.

Some applications work without that pain in the studio problem and others not. For example, when i was doing an up date to Band in a Box the installer could not see the application/contents. I had to use Pacifist to extract the contents of the .pkg. and manually move the files/folders.

Suggestions/advice/comments please.

Excellent point.

I am sure that it's booting into the external FW hard drive. It shows up as the first icon on the desk top. Also each drive has a different desktop and different application installed. The external FW is exclusively set up for midi/audio/video work. The main hard drive only has a few midi/audio/video programmes.

I am going to try another external FW drive to see what happens although i still don't know why apple's new iMacs only has one FW port. I know that many people swear by the USB drives but i have found that they do not keep up to a real time audio/video recording. They tend to stutter or chock when too much data is being pushed thru.

I believe that is the problem here. No matter how i daisy chain i still have the same problem.

I will be looking to finding a FW hub that goes from my iMac 800 ports out to 400 ports rather then daisy chaining. Those hubs are hard to find if not more expensive. Or find a FW drive that has the 800 ports.

Once again since my days and problems with the QuickSilver's and Mirror Door Macs that Apple has again disappointed me in building iMac's with only one FW port. ( Well, that's my Apple rant for today. )