Anyone ever had this problem with Pro Tools?

Hello and thanks for a great website. I hope you someone assist with the ongoing problems I am having.

MY SET-UP: Imac 800mhz/768mb ram running OSX 10.3. MBox, Pro Tools 6.4, external hard drive - seagate (7200speed with oxford 911 bridgechip.)
The PT program itself is launched from my original hard drive in the Imac and PT disk allocation is set for the external. I use the external drive to store all my projects and audio files etc..

MY PROBLEM: Audio will start to glitch, pop, or repeat anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour into a session. Once that happens it's over. I cannot save the session and attempting to do so usually results in "error -36", "neo access error", or something strange like "unable to access file rDfRh15476987rNtu". My only option at that point is to restart my computer and when the desktop comes up I get an apple system warning saying "I have inserted a firewire disk that is unreadable". It gives me 3 options, ignore, eject, or erase/initialize. Obviously I have never clicked "erase", but I have found that if I click "eject" and then power off/on the external HD the icon will come up again and all my files are still in tact (although I get nervous every time).

WHAT I'VE ALREADY TRIED: Everything suggested by the DigiDesign website including (but not limited to) reinitializing hard drive, trashing prefs & volume.ddb files etc.., Zapping the p-ram, making a new session and importing all the audio, etc.. I also used to have the same problem with an Acom data external. I already used up my free calls to DigiDesign and all I got was some barely helpful emails in return.

WHAT'S FRUSTRATING: Is that I have to save after literally every action. AND also that the makers of Pro Tools suggest that users buy an external HD for storage of audio files and disk allocation etc... The only ones officially supported by the DigiDesign website are like $500 for 80gb. That's a joke.

Thanks in advance,
-Heavy

the harddisk could either be over heating, or the cable could be dodgy.

try placing it in a better place where it'll recieve more airflow, if it has a fan built in, ensure it is running smoothly.

replace the firewire cable.

try other firewire drives on the same computer.

the firmware of the harddrive could be outdated (not the actual harddrive, but the firewire interface) try upgrading it.

The firewire harddrive may conflict with your system in some way also.

Have you done complete reformats of the hard drive, or just quick formats.

do a sector check of the hard drive.

also try different firewire ports on your mac.

how many devices are you running in a daisy chain if more than one.

how many components are inside your mac, it may have an under rated PSU.


EDIT: looks like your chipset thingy has a few compatibility problems;
During our tests with the Maxtor drive and the Orange Micro controller, we noticed a disturbing -- and semi-random -- tendency for files to become corrupted. This only seemed to happen during write operations; we read files that had previously been written to the drive without difficulties. But write operations such as unzipping an archive or installing a program almost always failed. Sure enough, the company we bought the drive from confirms that it has received numerous reports from Maxtor drive users of similar problems. We replaced the drive with a Quantum Fireball SE mechanism and everything worked. IBM and Seagate drives are also reported to function as expected. However, a 30GB Quantum AS produced the same maddeningly random data corruption errors we'd seen with the Maxtor.

thats with maxtor's though.

i purchased a firewire>laptop HD enclosure for about 30 bucks, in total it cost about 120 $. it works a charm. 40 gb, never had a problem.

actually before you do anything

UPDATE MAC OS!

http://www.macintouch.com/#notesandtips