I've had a 24x CDR in a firewire (400) external case that has works great. I picked up an NEC 2500a DVDr and decided to swap out the old CDR, but something VERY STRANGE happens, pls ADVISE...

When I plug in the 2500a (power, IDE, and audio - diff combinations of Slave/Master ) it won't power up; drive door won't eject - LED won't light up. But if I power the case off, and pull the IDE cable, the drive comes ALIVE and the button ejects, etc. When the IDE cable is plugged back in tho - DEAD LIKE YOUR GRANNY, OR CHILDHOOD DOG.

I put the 2500a in a PC, it works great, makes burns, reads fine, so I can't really RMA the drive, but why the strange behavior in the FW case, it even has OXFORD 911 chips! I tosses the CDR back in the case and it works great, only the 2500a, plugged up in THIS case, acts like this.

Ideas?

Having exactly the same trouble with Pyro Firewire Case. Works perfectly with Pioneer 103 and 106 but exhibits the same problems as Crispin.

Any Ideas?

Not sure what problems you guys you are having, but i have mine in a usb2.0 enclosure and it works fine, no problems at all, even works at 8x write.

I think some cases just dont like some drives, an example I have ads dual encloser USB2/1394 it worked with my old sony 510a, it worked with my liteon 811s , but when I decided to shelve the 811s to place new Nu tech 082 in the enclose it freaked out, would not flash the drive would not burn at anything over 2x it was mess. So I put a liteon 832s in the encloser, now it can flash, write at 8x the whole 9 yards. So I really do think not all dvd drives are the same in how they talk to ide, so some have lots of problems with an encloser.

I learned this the hard way. Most ext cases have IDE cables that are not notched. Thus you can happily insert the IDE cable upside down and not know it. The result is the exact same symptoms described here. Only way to know the cable is right is to look for the missing pin and allign it that way.

Thanks for the idea, but although you are right that it is easy to invert the cable this is not the case here. BTW the enclosure works with the Lite-On 851s which is more than can be said for the drive.

I have seen this kind of things happening to my case before. If it is a Oxford 911 chipset, you might want to try grabbing an firmware utilty that sets the mode. I think it is the way the chipset queries the devices. Some drives (I think it was LiteOn in my case) will not responde correctly and thus stuck in the state of not boot up (while other makes were okay).

I am actually having the same problem with LiteOn drives that I am putting in a Old SCSI converted Oxford922 bridge board enclosure.... can't find an utility to set the mode though.... although I know that Oxford 911 have one (I actually had an enclosure that had the same problem).

Min

Oh, I think this is the software....
http://www.cooldrives.com/firewireinfo.html
Grab the Oxford911 Uploader. However, I don't remember the setting already... I believe it has to do with the Query Non-Standard Device or something like that....
Hope that might help.

Min

My new NEC 3500A is behaving the same way. I can get it to work sometimes in the older of the 2 ADS Pyro cases I have. (The older one has an internal power supply, the newer one has the external brick.) My Plextor 4824 CD-R works fine in either. The NEC behaves similar to the OP's. When I had a TDK 880n (nec 2500 re-badge), had the exact same problem, but couldn't get it to work even once in either case. I tried the uitlity in the above message, the utility ti check your current firmware just says no device found. Rescanning does nothing. (Both cases are online at the moment, newer with Plextor, older with NEC)

Update to above post. I also have one of these cases - just tried the NEC in that one, and it works fine. I'd prefer the newer ADS because of the quieter fan, but oh well.

You sure it was a Oxford chipset firewire bridgeboard in your case? I was having some exchange of email with the tech support where I bought my Oxford922 bridgeboard. He is saying that UDMA wasn't enabled on the board. That's why it did not work.
I am pretty sure that if it is an Oxford chipset bridgeboard, then you might need to update the setting to query the device as an Universal Device, wait 6s (something to that effect) and UDMA on. This happens only to some Optical drive... not all. I know my Liteon drives have this kind of problem.

The ADS cases are both firewire-only cases. No idea if they use oxford or not, this is what device manager identifies it as:

SBP2\ADS_TECHNOLOGIES__INC.__&1394_STORAGE+REPEATER___&LUN0\0050C501500B19F3

Unfortunately, vendors can put in whatever ID string they feel like..... the sure way is to look at the bridgeboard and the chip. Sorry I can't be of more help....

I had the same power-up problem with my NEC 2500A in an external Firewire case with Oxford 911 chip. I used a Firmware utilty (http://www.triumphtech.com/Driver/Oxford160GB.zip) to make the Oxford 911 chip waited 6 seconds before polling the drive, then my 2500A worked fine.

Markz2003
Maybe you can check information about ADS firewire cases on this website although it is for Mac. http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/firewire/...w_reports.html

Thanks for the responses. I downloaded the firmware utility (oxford160GB.zip) and installed it. I enabled the 6s delay. I haven't tried it with the NEC drive, I have a Plextor 4824a in there now. It worked fine before the mod. and still does. I've got a Lite-On SOHW-812 I can put in there to test, later.