A problem is causing some of those who install the new version of Mac OS X to lose the data that's stored on their external hard drives.
Apple Computer said the glitch is limited to external hard drives that use a high-speed FireWire connection and a particular chipset Oxford Semiconductor manufactures. The company encouraged those who have a drive that uses the chip to disconnect their drives from Macs that are being upgraded to Mac OS X version 10.3, or Panther. "Apple has identified an issue with external FireWire hard drives using the Oxford 922 bridge chipset with firmware version 1.02 that can result in the loss of data stored on the disk drive," the company said in a statement provided to CNET News.com. "Apple is working with Oxford Semiconductor and affected drive manufacturers to resolve this issue, which resides in the Oxford 922 chipset."
An Oxford Semiconductor representative declined to comment. Apple recommended that customers do not use drives that have the Oxford chip in question. "To stop using the drive, you should unmount or eject the disk drive before doing anything else," the company said. Among the drives that are affected are the d2 series of FireWire 800 drives from LaCie. The company said the affected products have serial numbers less than "1339xxxxx" or "0339xxxxx". The drives shipped between April and the end of September.
News source: C|Net News.com
Apple Computer said the glitch is limited to external hard drives that use a high-speed FireWire connection and a particular chipset Oxford Semiconductor manufactures. The company encouraged those who have a drive that uses the chip to disconnect their drives from Macs that are being upgraded to Mac OS X version 10.3, or Panther. "Apple has identified an issue with external FireWire hard drives using the Oxford 922 bridge chipset with firmware version 1.02 that can result in the loss of data stored on the disk drive," the company said in a statement provided to CNET News.com. "Apple is working with Oxford Semiconductor and affected drive manufacturers to resolve this issue, which resides in the Oxford 922 chipset."
An Oxford Semiconductor representative declined to comment. Apple recommended that customers do not use drives that have the Oxford chip in question. "To stop using the drive, you should unmount or eject the disk drive before doing anything else," the company said. Among the drives that are affected are the d2 series of FireWire 800 drives from LaCie. The company said the affected products have serial numbers less than "1339xxxxx" or "0339xxxxx". The drives shipped between April and the end of September.
Now that you have set the desired cabin altitude, simply turn on the bleed air and the cabin will begin to go to that alitude if you are higher than that. Twiddle the very lower-left knob with no label to get there faster or slower.Then climb above 12,500 or so and turn off the bleed air, or set a cabin altitude above 12,500... you will slowly black out! This is a serious occurence in the real airplane that you must avoid if you want to live. NOTE: You must be flying an airplane that HAS a pressurization differential in the SYSTEMS screen in Plane-Maker for this effect to occurr.
Otherwise, X-Plane assumes that the designer simply did not include the pressurization systems in the aircraft, adn the pressurization system is assumed to
be automated.
Trim speed is now controllable in Plane-Maker controls screen... enter the trim speed in ratio to default.
In Plane-Maker engine screen tab 3, set the exhaust ratio now... 1.0 for default, and more or less per plane to get the exhaust trails perfect for each particular craft!
New artificial stability option: Joystick simply sets pitch and roll. Easy!
Just move the stick to set the desired hovering attitude. Set up the constants in Plane-Maker Artificial Stability screen

The sad thing is.... it was created by apple.
Go on, you know you want to...
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It is, on a more serious note, a massive oversight for Apple - seeing as they are the main computer firm pushing Firewire (and even more exclusivlely Firewire 800). It does seem like a rather big bug to have slipped through.
Is it clear as to whether the bug is related to installation (which I read somewhere), or whether it regards full time drive use even once you're up and running?
Can we not have a post involving the “Microsoft” word without bashing them about how horrible they are?
I ALWAYS see posts about how bad the bugs in Microsoft are, and everybody flaming them, but as soon as someone says something about the beloved Mac, someone gets p****d off.
Sounds like a double standard.
Last edited by 28526 on 31 Oct 2003 - 20:06
Ah! So Mac OS does have bugs after all! /sarcasm
Maybe the day the same thing happens in Microsoft articles.
Yes they will probably release a patch with a work around in the drivers but according to the story, it was a bug in the chipset of a small subset of drives.
That's odd, every article that I read about it disagrees with you. The flaw is in the chipset used in the drives (which by the way, are not made by Apple). How can it be Apple's fault then? The same thing would have happened with Linux, Unix, or even Windows if the driver was written from the same specs. Proof that it's a flaw in the hardware: several of the manufacturers of these drives already had firmware patches out that corrected this BEFORE Panther was released, but of course, few users ever bother to update the firmware on things like this.
BTW, NO manufacturers had firmware patches out before Panther was released. Only in the past couple days have patches been released.
There is a double-standard. It's ok to bash Microsoft. Only Microsoft. Everyone else is off the hook. It's something I've noticed here over the last year.. It's not really worth getting into most of the time, but other times, you just can't resist. For the most part, I've come to accept it as a condition of visiting Neowin.
It's possible that it might be a flaw in the chipsets implimentation of Firewire 800.
And how many chipsets does MS XP support?
Lessee...Intel's, BX, TX, VIA's, SiS'....
Apple let this through despite their hardware MONOPOLY. I have no doubt Apple will fix it soon enough, HOWEVER:
It's the MAC faithful who make fun of MS' bug and security problems, yet MS does well with literally millions of hardware and software combinations.
Apple's faithful is learning that the MAC isn't necessarily better, just different. Until they do, expect some Apple crow eating on behalf of PC users.
Hmmm, last time I checked, Apple didn't make any external firewire drives, so how could they possibly have a monopoly on them?
Since Apple is the sole distributor of Mac hardware, they control everything that goes in. They have total control over limiting the vast majority of supplied hardware to the Apple buyer. OK, Firewire drives are obviously external, but Firewire800 is still 99% exclusively a Mac technology, and Apple really should hvae caught something as chronic as this.
Admittedly, that was the most liberal use of the word Monopoly I've ever seen.
Clearly this is Apple's fault. If I went and wrote a driver for a hard disk, and it ended up unintentionally wiping it, does that give me right to say it's the drive's fault?
No one has spoken about the actual specifics of this so you can't blame anyone yet as to who was out of spec, but as it stands it seems like upgrading the drive past 1.02 seems to correct the problem, so I am assuming this is a firmware fault by Oxford, as they are the ones that are even saying that only 1.02 and below are effected. Makes you wonder what they changed when they went above that.
Unfortunate though in the end for all parties involved and I hope everyone comes together to try and work this out as fast as possible.
As long as its admitted quickly and resolved quickly .
Windows, despite being so widespread and with patches increasingly public has massive problems persuading people to patch, hence the increasingly dumbed down Windows Update system. Do macs suffer from the same user apathy?
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