Recent problems with some FireWire 800 drives when used with Panther have prompted some hard-drive makers to update their firmware. A number of hard-drive makers have released patches designed to prevent a glitch that has caused some FireWire 800 drives to lose data when used with the new version of Mac OS X.
Hard-drive manufacturers LaCie, WiebeTech and Other World Computing have all posted firmware updates designed to avoid the problem, which has caused some Mac users to lose the information on their hard drives after upgrading to Mac OS X version 10.3, or Panther. Apple said on Thursday that the issue is a problem with drives that use the Oxford 922 bridge chipset with firmware version 1.02.
"Apple is working with Oxford Semiconductor and affected drive manufacturers to resolve this issue, which resides in the Oxford 922 chipset," the company said in a statement. In the interim, Oxford Semiconductor released a statement saying it is looking into the matter but does not believe its chips are solely to blame. "We currently believe that this issue relates to a change in the way Panther uses FireWire, which affected version 1.02 of the OXUF922 driver software," the company said, adding that a later version of its firmware, 1.05, was released in September.
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News source: ZDNet UK
