Mac OS X 10.3.7 (#17): FireWire booting; SATA problems; sleep issues; CD/DVD setting; more

We continue our coverage of the Mac OS X 10.3.7 Update.

Problems booting from FireWire drives We've been covering an issue where bootable FireWire drives have been rendered unbootable after updating them to OS X 10.3.7; we continue to receive a significant number of reports of this issue. Although we don't have any indication that the following applies to all such reports, reader Sari Kadison writes that in at least one case, the cause of the problem is a drive having the "Ignore ownership on this volume" setting enabled in the volume's Get Info window in the Finder:

"I was having the same problem that several readers mentioned. I have a La Cie 160 GB external drive that was partitioned in four parts. The main part had OS 10.3.7 on it and I was not able to boot from it after installing the 10.3.7 update on my internal drive. I tried several things [that didn't work] .But then, I fixed it! I did a 'Get Info' on the partition of the drive I wanted to boot from and UNchecked the 'ignore ownership' [option]...after that I was able to run Disk Utility and select 'Repair Permissions.' When it repaired the permissions, it repaired about a zillion of them...seriously, there were a ton and it took a long time. After that, I was able to boot up from 10.3.7 on my Firewire drive, and I did not need to do a new install."

Issues with FireWire DVD burners Reader Andrew Francois writes that since updating to 10.3.7 his external DVD burner no longer functions via FireWire:

"After a 10.3.7 network update, my [Titanium] PowerBook G4 400Mhz doesn't like CDs or DVDs loaded into my Sony External Combo Firewire/USB2.0 DVD Burner (CD525-FWC-DVD) using FireWire. Using USB is OK...but when connected with FireWire a CD or DVD disk doesn't mount and [results in] a message from OS X saying that the disk is unreadable."

Finder's CD/DVD on Desktop setting applies to connected drives Over the past few weeks, we've occasionally noted reports of an issue where FireWire devices appear as CDs/DVDs. The most common response from readers has been "it's normal for FireWire drives to appear as removable volumes in Finder sidebars." Unfortunately, we may not have been clear in our description of the problem. According to some users, since installing the 10.3.7 Update, FireWire drives do not appear on the Desktop if Finder preferences' "Show these items on the Desktop" setting is enabled for Hard disks. However, they do appear on the Desktop if the setting for "CDs, DVDs and iPods" is enabled. What makes this issue confusing is that in the Sidebar screen of Finder preferences, whether or not FireWire drives appear in the sidebar is controlled by the "Hard disks" setting. In other words, the two groups of Finder settings -- General and Sidebar -- do not behave consistently.

As a side note, we should point out that this issue is not new with Mac OS X 10.3.7. We have machines running older versions of OS X 10.3 and they exhibit exactly the same behavior.

SATA drive problems Last Wednesday we noted reports of an issue where volumes on internal, non-boot SATA drives will not mount from a cold boot under OS X 10.3.7 (and 10.3.6, according to some readers), but will mount after a restart. We continue to receive sporadic reports of issues with 2nd internal SATA drives. Daryl Klein writes:

"I recently added a Seagate 120GB SATA drive into my G5 dual-2Ghz three months ago. I had at that time OSX 10.3.6, and noticed that copying massive amounts of files was transfering a tad slower than usual. After installing OSX 10.3.7 through the Software Update...while trying to [copy] 1-5MB files off the drive, it started having a massive coronary trying to copy. The copying of about 200 files took 9 hours, after freezing and rebooting 45 times. The files would start to transfer, hesitate, transfer extremely slow again, then freeze. Hard rebooting each time allowed me to get most of it. I checked the disk with Disk Utility, and it said the drive was fine. But Apple Diagnostics [CD] stated there was some sort of I/O problem. As time went on and my hair got greyer, eventually it got to where I couldn't even open the disk icon without it freezing the finder. So, my only solution was to re-intall [Panther] and re-format the drive. No such luck, so I downloaded and re-installed 10.3.7, and here I sit today with a 3 month old drive that is now unplugged.

Sleep and external/other devices: not just 10.3.7 Yesterday we covered an issue where other electrical devices on the same circuit as a PowerBook could cause that computer to wake from sleep when they turn on/off. We've since received a number of similar reports from readers; however, some have not yet updated to 10.3.7. For example, Paul Bradforth writes:

"Thought you'd like to know I've seen the same thing: I have a new 1.8GHz DP Power Mac and if I put it to sleep, then switch off a light which is plugged into the same strip, the machine will wake again. I can only sleep the machine after I've turned every external device off first. This doesn't happen with a Power Mac G4 which is plugged into the same strip. The difference here is that, having read of the various problems with the latest sytem update and the Firmware update, I've installed neither of them, preferring to wait until the problem is sorted. So, my G5 is running OS 10.3.6 and I still see this problem."

Ron Blanchard echoes reports of lights waking up Macs: "I have run into this strange phenomenon in that when I come into the room with my eMac sleeping and I turn on a light my Mac sometimes wakes up."

(We should note that Macs/PowerBooks/iBooks generally wake from sleep when they detect some sort of electrical activity from a peripheral (such as a keyboard or mouse); this explains the numerous reports from readers of printers and other USB devices waking their Mac.)

Isolated issues We've also received a few isolated reports of issues; if you've also experienced theses issues, drop us an email at Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

Fax receive won't turn off? Reader Joshua Towle notes an inability to disable fax answering:

"Currently I own a 1Ghz Dual Processor Desktop G4 running 10.3.7. The 'receive' option on Print/Fax System Preferences is set to off; however, when I dial my home phone number, the fax software answers the line after 2 rings. I cannot shut off the fax answering service."

Monitor issue with PowerBook Margaret Gundersen describes an issue using an external monitor with her PowerBook since the update:

"Since upgrading to 10.3.7, when I connect my 12" PowerBook to the extra monitor, the monitor does not see the connection at all. I must do an entire restart for the ViewSonic monitor to recognize the computer or vise versa, otherwise the monitor keeps saying the connection cannot be found."

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