P2/1394 host/fw drive question

[RJS]

I'm trying to help out a friend(really it's not me...) who is having a problem with access to some footage...

He transferred p2 files via 1394 host mode to a fw drive (that had been formatted by the camera)...he renamed the partitions from NONAME to unique names...there was one partition that was an incomplete transfer so he deleted it...all the partitions then unmounted and disappeared...when he attaches the drive to his mac it says that it is an unformatted drive.

I attempted to recreate the problem...formatted a fw drive with the hvx200 and transferred a few cards to the drive...which created the appropriate partitions...I then attempted to erase one of these partitions using Disk Utility, however I get an error saying the "Volume erase failed with the error: Could not read partition map". I'm using a dual 2ghz g5 powerpc 10.4.10...

He's using a mac/intel duocore laptop with the latest updates...

Of course now I'm wondering why I'm having the problem erasing a partition...

Any help is greatly appreciated!

RJS

 

[NoahK]

I suspect it might not be possible to re-partition or erase partitions once created by the HVX. It's either all or nothing- reformat the entire drive to OS X Extended or with the HVX but not both.

Noah

 

[Ldom]

Yes and I wouldn't rename the partitions either. Make sure the cards have their own name and don't touch the resulting partitions. When you do that (which is actually not touching anything), everything is fine and the drives show up properly all the time.

 

[RJS]

Thanks for the info...

So, if I understand correctly, when you use up your 15 partitions the drive is finished...no way to delete a partition and make another transfer?

Any thoughts on recovery of the guys footage? I've searched around and found a few ideas/, although if those do not work i'm thinking he will have to take it to a data recovery company.

RJS