Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q
by Eric Van Skyhawk
on
Oct 4, 2008 at 4:05:24 am
So I have had my 500 GB G Drive Q for about a month. Recently it has started to hang and become unresponsive. The drive is still mounted, but won't react to any actions. Even during copying files it has hung. And if the computer is trying to access the drive, it will freeze, but once I power the drive down the computer will come back up.
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Eduard Chugunov on Oct 6, 2008 at 4:11:09 pm
Hello Eric,
Have you attempted to try different cables? For example, using a USB cable where you would normally use a firewire cable? It it possible that perhaps the cable is bad or maybe the port it self.
I would also like you to create a new user in system preferences. Log in as that new user and attempt to recreate the same issue on the new system. Also, if you happen to have a different computer please give that a try as well.
Inregards to the power supply, do you happen to have one from a different unit, perhaps a different G-Drive or G-Drive Q, or a G-SATA power supply will work.
If after all this you still have the same issue, then you will need to contact the tech support department and have them issue you an RMA. The phone number to contact the G-Tech support department at 310-449-4599 press 2 to be transfered.
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Eric Van Skyhawk on Oct 7, 2008 at 2:12:03 am
I have tried switching cables, I even switched the order that it was in my HDD daisy chain.
Also this is my only G-Drive, so there's no power supply mix-up.
At first I thought it was a system issue using Time Machine for back-up for Mac. Then I disabled that, but it continued hang.
And about recreating the issue with a new user, you never know when it's going to happen. I have had days were it runs fine then it's starts to hang. Just recently it started doing it more often than not.
Like last night trying to pull data off of it, it started to hang each copy attempt, but then after about 7 attempts it copied everything over fine.
I guess I will call G-Tech Support tomorrow. And see if I can return the drive.
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by David Daniel on Nov 13, 2008 at 12:47:54 am
I'm having the exact same problem with my G-Tech 500gb Drive-Q. Over the last few weeks my brand new drive has been "freezing" my system. After a period (few hours) of inactivity the drive will stop responding. It appears mounted by trying to access the disk causes the Finder to freeze. The only recourse is to turn the disk off, wait a bit, and turn it back on. At that time the disk remounts and the contents can be accessed. I doubt this is a cable issues since it's only 2 months old. Using the firewire 800 cable on an intel iMac 2.4ghz.
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Bryce Darcy on Nov 22, 2008 at 11:22:23 pm
And I'm having a similar problem - but with a 1TB G-Drive Q. In fact, I'm on my second G-Drive Q as Time Machine backup drive - having already returned the first to the Apple Store in DE where I've been buying them. Once it stops working reliably, nothing seems to restore it.
I'm about to post an independent thread about my problem... but I've been thinking it's Time Machine related. I have yet another 1TB G-Drive Q that I use for video editing with Final Cut Pro and it's been working fine over the last couple months.
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by David Horowitz on May 8, 2009 at 3:04:50 am
I have been having exactly the same problem with my 3 month old G drive Q 500 gig. Only I'm having a very frustrating time even getting the thing to mount so I can recover data! AHHH! The problem began a week ago, where it would freeze up during copying as described in this thread, but the situation has since worsened, to where I have to make many attempts just to get it to mount! whenever it so graciously decides it wants to mount, it may or may not stay on long enough to let me copy 10 of the 300 gigs of data I'm trying to recover. I don't understand why this is happening, it worked perfectly up until last week . . .
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Bear Guerra on Jun 4, 2009 at 7:10:16 pm
Hello -
I have been having the exact same problem that everyone describes in this thread. I even had the drive replaced by G-Tech (which was only a month old at the time), and I'm still having the same problem. Does anyone have any answers or solutions yet? I'm using a 500gb G-Drive on an intel chip MacBook...
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Markk Roberts on Jun 15, 2009 at 6:11:44 pm
I am starting to think the problems are more related to Time Machine... as I too have a 500GB and a 1TB G-Tech drive... the 500GB is my "Time Machine" backup drive... and my 1TB is my iTunes library drive... and guess what, it works fine, no problems... but my 500GB is the newer of the two... and it wont even mount at all...
I've tried all 3 cables FireWire 800/400 and USB 2.0 The unit powers up, but wont even appear... I have two MacBook pros, and Ive tried on both machines... heck if I could even get it to show up in Disk First Aid to reformat I would, and never use Time Machine again and use "Super Duper"
Anyone else? Thoughts? Solutions? My 500GB is less than 6 month's old... and I went to these based on the good reviews of the Hitachi drives installed... I had the same issues with my LaCie drives... I am REALLY thinking it is a Time Machine issue, that eventually gets us to this point...
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Niels Elemans on Jul 15, 2009 at 10:57:11 am
Same problem here!
I bought a 500 GB Drive Q in October 2008 because it's recommened for Pro Tools. And I've got a lot of bad experiences with Lacie drives.
Usually, after about 30-60 minutes HD is hanging. It doesn't react on anything anymore and it's also not possible to eject it. My whole system is kind of stuck, I can't even restart OSX without rudely plugging out the HD.
I've tried the HD with different cables on different computers but it's still hanging. I'm gonna contact my reseller this week after I managed to to get the data copied from it..
I think there's really something wrong with this serie drives..
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Simon Wyndham on Aug 27, 2009 at 3:45:18 pm
I know this is an older thread, but my 500GB G-Drive has recently started to hang too. Took me a while to track down the reason why my system was taking forever to boot up or shut down or hang was down to this drive.
Sometimes if I turn the whole system off completely and unplug from the wall for a while it reboots just fine and the drive works well. But then it starts to go funny again.
There does appear to be an issue with this type of drive. Like others here my drive is fairly new. I do not use it for Time Machine, so I do not think that this has anything to do with that.
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Austin Bennett on Aug 29, 2009 at 2:32:43 am
I bought a 1TB G-Drive to use with Time Machine a few months ago and after about a month or so it started having those same problems. It would become unresponsive after not using it for a little bit and so I would have to turn it off then on again. Then it got worse and wouldn't even mount. So I sent it back to G-Tech to have it fixed and when I finally got it back it worked great for 1-2 weeks then started having problems again.
So here's the solution I found and it seems to be working well so far. Since the drives are going to sleep and not waking up again I went into the energy saver preferences and unchecked "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" and I haven't had a problem since.
Honestly, I don't think that this should be a permanent solution to the problem. We shouldn't have to "make do" with things like this, things should really just work as described. But I would recommend trying this and seeing if it works for you too.
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Austin Bennett on Aug 29, 2009 at 7:21:00 pm
I will add to my previous statement, that I am still having problems with the hard drive, it seemed to get better and work a little bit, but I am now having problems again.
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Noah Harlan on Sep 1, 2009 at 7:07:50 am
I'm having the exact same problem as everyone else here has described. I'm not using it for Time Machine so that's not the issue. I've swapped cables, sometimes this has happened when it's connected over FW800 sometimes over FW400. This is completely infuriating! G-Tech - help us!!!
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Marc Hermann on Sep 3, 2009 at 2:31:11 am
Ditto, with the G-Drive Q. It worked fine initially, now it's just as ridiculously awful as the old Lacie. It can't handle the simple manual transfer of a folder of JPGs, let alone use as Time Machine. I really wanted to be able to leave it hooked to the computer and let it do its thing, but it won't cooperate.
Both with a desktop model and with an Intel MacBook Pro.
As a news photographer in New York City, I can NOT afford to lose all my work. This is clearly a faulty product.
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Dana Strom on Sep 14, 2009 at 12:25:17 am
I've actually now had 3 problematic 1TB G-Drive Qs within the last 3 months! It's exactly the same deal- it'll often work fine- for hours on end. Then I start getting 30-45 minutes from it before it freezes everything up (including Finder) - At one point I even had exactly the same experience as above; I unchecked "put disks to sleep" in Energy Saver and that seemed to solve the problem for about 2 days! Now- two of the drives are pretty much useless- the one I need rarely even mounts and the other's a paperweight.
It's incredibly embarrassing because two of these drives belong to a client and it's difficult to reassure them that I'm not mistreating their drives... has anyone gotten any official word from G-Tech? I saw on another thread that they were looking into the possibility of defective controller boards.
I also saw somewhere that people are taking the drives out of their cases and using them in internal drives (bypassing the bad controller boards) and having no other problems with them... however this of course voids the warranty. : (
Anyone know what the G-Tech return policy is? Full refund? Repair? Replacement?
Can anyone recommend another brand of drives?
It's a shame- I've had such great experiences with G-Tech drives for so long! I recommend them to everybody!!!
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Noah Harlan on Sep 14, 2009 at 1:03:33 am
I contacted G-Tech customer support and they asked me to send them the drive. They have it now and should repair & return. I don't think they do any refunds. If the repair fails then you'll see me back here for sure.
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Markk Roberts on Sep 14, 2009 at 1:49:29 am
Well the "good news" if there is any out of all of this... is the support from G-Tech. My 500GB drive as you'll see below wouldn't even mount, it was just gone. It was also less than 6 month's old.
I went to G-Tech's website, filled out the form to get an RA# and shipped it back to G-Tech. Fortunately for me, I was "ok" with just reformatting the drive as I had everything already on the drive backed up again elsewhere. It took a bit longer than I expected but I have the drive back good as new and has taken it's place back as my main Time Machine™ backup.
So "if" you can do without the drive for about 12-15 days, they do fix it. I didn't even see a detailed report of what they did, all I know is it works again. You just send in the drive, no cables.
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Dana Strom on Nov 10, 2009 at 8:08:03 pm
Hi- as I\'ve been having the same problem with my drive for a few months- (haven\'t had time to send it in) I did find a workaroun in the meantime; on a hunch, I bought an esata express card for my Macbook Pro and connected my G-Drive Q that way. It seems to bypass whatever issue it was having via FireWire and seems to work \"perfectly\". Yes, it\'s annoying to work via esata, especially because the connection seems flimsy and the wrong bump can disconnect the drive, but at least now I just need to find the time to back everything up since it sounds like repairing it can take weeks or months.
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Noah Harlan on Nov 10, 2009 at 8:24:55 pm
I spoke to the guys at G-Tech. They have discovered that the controller cards on a generation of the Q's are bad. Right now they are replacing the devices with the next gen controllers which means you lose the FW400 port but at least it works consistently.
That being said, what was supposed to be a 5-day turnaround on the repair took nearly two months and wasn't completed until I held their feet to the fire. I love their stuff but this experience has been less than stellar.
Re: Hanging 500 GB G Drive Q by Simon Wyndham on Nov 12, 2009 at 12:16:29 pm
Hmm. I hope mine is faster. Two months is a pretty dire turnaround time. Thing is though, even when mine is repaired/replaced I'm not sure if I trust it as a backup drive any more.
