What's going on?
In November, 1997, Apple released a utility to fix a bug in some Apple disk drives that would not correctly wake up from sleep mode. Some Macs containing these drives would crash when the disk was powered back up after being put to sleep by Apple's Energy Saver or St. Clair Software's Sleeper.
We have since determined that the problem is not unique to Apple-installed drives, but also affects Quantum Fireball ST drives sold by other manufacturers, including APS and LaCie.
With the help of Quantum technical support and a handful of dedicated Sleeper users, we've verified that the bug affects a number of Fireball ST drives with revision 0F0C firmware. In fact, the problem is exactly the same as the Apple Firmware Bug - the firmware in third-party Fireball ST disks is functionally identical to that used in the Apple drives that were addressed by Apple's fix.
Are you affected?
To determine if your drive is affected, do the following:
- Using SCSI Probe or the Apple System Profiler distributed with System 7.6 and above, check the product name and firmware version in your disk drive. In SCSI Probe, these appear in the third and fifth columns of the display; in Apple System Profiler, select "Device Information" from the "Select" menu and look at the "Product ID" and "Revision" fields.
- If the product name contains the word "FIREBALL ST", the version is not "OFOJ", and you are experiencing crashes when the drive wakes up from sleep, you may need to update your drive's firmware.
NOTE: Version 3.0.2 or higher of Sleeper will automatically warn you if you try to configure disk sleep on a drive that may have defective firmware. Sleeper users should make sure they have the latest version, 3.2, which can be downloaded by clicking here.
What can you do about it?
While acknowledging the bug, Quantum has elected not to release a firmware updater to the public. Affected users have several avenues for dealing with the problem:
- Turn off hard disk sleep for the faulty drive. While it sacrifices functionality, this is an easy way to deal with the problem for the short term.
- Call Quantum at 1-800-826-8022. They will upgrade the firmware in drives that are shipped back to them. The newer Fireball SE model may be offered as a replacement, since it has newer firmware. Please read Quantum's recommendations about shipping a drive to Quantum before calling.
- Use the method detailed by Sleeper user Dave Hamilton to make the Apple updater work with non-Apple drives. Dave, a very resourceful computer consultant at Computer NERDZ! of Austin, figured out how to change the configuration files of Apple's 2/3/4/6 GB Firmware Utility, allowing it to update non-Apple drives to the 0F0J version firmware.
While we cannot endorse this method because it involves changing the configuration files of Apple's utility, several users have reported that it works and successfully fixes the sleep wake-up problem.
Click here to see Dave Hamilton's email with details on using the Apple 2/3/4/6 GB Firmware Utility to update non-Apple drives.
|
