On 3/7/03 8:36 am, in article
rpg14-2AA193.08364803072003[at]pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk, "Richard P. Grant"
<rpg14[at]yahoo.co.uk.invalid> wrote:

> Given an external FW HD, with two FW ports, is it possible/safe to mount
> it on two Macs simultaneously? (OS Jag.6)

Very dangerous most probably leathal, I seem to recall that Mac keep an
image of the disk directory on the Mac. So if one Mac writes to the disk the
second Mac wouldn't know about it until it tried to wite a potential screw
up.

On a far more simplistic level, with newer Firewire disks, the Mac puts the
disk to sleep and powers it down when it is dismounted. The second Mac
connected to the disk would see this as an incorrectly disconnected disk and
put up the warning window. Now your second Mac is effectively frozen unless
you cycle power to the hard disk. If you cycle the power to the disk the
first Mac is then gonna get confused. As you probably are trying to follow
this text :-)

Believe me, just try unplugging a mounted Firewire disk.

Mike <mike.2871DELETE_ME[at]btinternet.com> wrote:

> Believe me, just try unplugging a mounted Firewire disk.

I have. I boot off a FireWire disk. One day I forgot, sleeped (not slept
- that's what I do) the PowerBook, disconnected everything and took it
into another room. I woke it up and it told me in no uncertain terms
that it was annoyed.

I took it back into the office, plugged in the FW disk, and the
PowerBook was happy again. Amazing - no reboots required.

--
Pd

PeterD <pd.news[at]dsl.pipex.invalid> wrote:

> Mike <mike.2871DELETE_ME[at]btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> > Believe me, just try unplugging a mounted Firewire disk.
>
> I have. I boot off a FireWire disk. One day I forgot, sleeped (not slept
> - that's what I do) the PowerBook, disconnected everything and took it
> into another room. I woke it up and it told me in no uncertain terms
> that it was annoyed.
>
> I took it back into the office, plugged in the FW disk, and the
> PowerBook was happy again. Amazing - no reboots required.

You seem to be able to get away with it if its not doing anything with
it at the time though (unlike network drives) I'd just minutes before
your post pulled the plug on a pair or iMacs (one in TDM) without
ejecting the drive first, the running iMac says oi you shouldn't do that
then merrily continued with what it was doing before hand
--
Jon
jon.bradbury[at]btinternet.com