FW800->FW400 issue on PB G4 is not that harmless.

[ssp3]

So far, after reading numerous posts here, I've got an impression that FW800 ports reverting to FW400 speeds and FW400 ports being disabled on unsopported Macs, PowerBook G4 1GHz 17" included, was not a big deal. Sort of 'so what?'

After acquiring mine and getting OS9 up and running, I went into extensive external FireWire enclosure testing.
I was mostly interested to see whether my 'jailbreaked' WD firmware works in OS9, but I also wanted to see what kind of transfer speeds one can achieve.

I have several (if not too many  ) FW enclosures that I went to test:
* MyBook Premium (FW400), My Book Home (FW400), MyBook Studio, first version (FW800), MyBook Studio II (FW800, dual), MyBook Studio, encrypted version, jailbreaked (FW800), all by Western Digital.
* SK-2500 (bus powered FW400/800, 2.5") and SK-3500 (FW400/800) by inXtron, aka Akitio, aka Dinic.
* LaCie Rugged (bus powered FW400/800, 2.5").
* Freecom HD Dock Quattro (FW400/800)

I have all enclosures dissasembled so that I can access bridge boards and always use the same drive in my tests, except MyBook Studio II RAID enclosure.

Applications used for speed testing - ATTO ProTools, FWB HDT and Intech SpeedTools.
Application used for data transfer integrity - Intech's Integrity.
Drive formatted in OS9 by Drive Setup 1.9.2, also tried Disk Utility with OS9 drivers in 10.5.8

Now guess what? All the enclosures, with the exception of two, produce numerous data transfer errors. Within 20 seconds or so, after transfer is initiated. The application, any of them, actually, crashes, forcing me to do a hard restart. After that, the volume on drive is toast. Neither Norton, nor DiskWarrior can repair it. Copying files to drive in Finder produces the same results.
I've tried FW800 to FW800 and FW800 to FW400 cables (on enclosures that had FW400 ports) - no difference.

In next step, I erased the OS9 from PowerBook's internal drive and cloned 10.5.8 by CCC from the 1.5 GHz 12" PB G4 to it.
This time I used Intech's Speed Tools 3.9 for testing, and, what a surprise! All enclosures work as expected! On both, FW800 and FW400 ports. No errors whatsoever! And, btw, if PB is booted from external FW800 drive, it is faster than on internal ATA drive.

So, here we are - same hardware, same chipset, same everything, except OS and drivers but different results.
This is scary. A major show stopper.   I don't think I've made any error, did I?

I think this issue needs to be tackled. Any ideas? Anyone? I'm not a programmer by trade, but I can patch a thing or two Do I have to start poking around in 10.2.x kexts? There are also FireWire SDKs 2.2.2 and 2.3 on some of the Devel CDs, but that stuff is a bit over my head.

One interesting observation (I don't know if it has been spotted here before or not) - when I had OS9 on PB's internal drive and booted with opt key pressed with another bootable OS9 drive present on the FW400 port, that drive was recognized as an option to boot from. When I pressed the right arrow, nothing happened and PB booted from internal drive as before and the drive on FW400 port went stealth.

Question to Open Firmware experts - is this drive selection screen part of OF or does it happens after OF has done it's thing?



UPDATE. One of the two "working" enclosures also produced errors after longer test period, so, it is only one left.

(Pics from various tests attached).

[macarone]

>Question to Open Firmware experts - is this drive selection screen part of OF or does it happens after OF has done it's thing?

The Boot Manager loads BEFORE Open Firmware.

If you are in the Boot Manager screen, and just select which drive you want to eventually boot from, but DON'T hit the boot key, you can hit Control-Z to go to Open Firmware.

When you give the boot command in Open Firmware, it will boot the OS you selected in Boot Manager.

When in Boot Manager, if you have lots of drives connected, and it is taking a long time to check them all, once you have selected the boot drive, click the mouse once, and then Command-Period will stop the Boot Manager from searching further and start the boot right away.

[IIO]

until now there are no reports about issues with the fw-800 port on the MDD-unsupported. on these PB´s there must be something very different from the MDD regarding this port.

[ssp3]

The Boot Manager loads BEFORE Open Firmware.

OK, thanks, macarone!

Btw, does anyone have a list of commands for Apple Service Diagnostic Open Firmware version?

I can boot into it, but then I'm lost. I'm not familiar with OF stuff at all and don't want to brick my PowerBook.

[ssp3]

until now there are no reports about issues with the fw-800 port on the MDD-unsupported. on these PB´s there must be something very different from the MDD regarding this port.

Most probably. Maybe iMic went one step too far or omitted something when he modified the 10.2.1 ROM?

Does anyone have previous versions of his ROM saved? I am willing to try those out.

Also, I pulled out of one of the ASD these two parts. Anyone have any idea what the 'of_firewire.tcm' is? In OS9 it says that it is shared library shlb and part of INDY SDK 2.1.10.
When placed inside Extensions folder and looked at with Apple System Profiler -> Extensions, it says that it is by Apple and is enabled. But makes no difference when it comes to FireWire functionality. The other one inside the archive is just a text file.

[ssp3]

Next stage.

I replaced the original ROM file from 'Mac OS 9.2.2 Unsupported G4', dated 2014, with ROM from 'ROM for unsupported G4' folder on 'Rescue & Install CD', dated 2016. I've checked with ResCompare and they are different.

Now, with this ROM, neither Drive Setup 1.9.2 nor 2.1 can initialize the drive. Even better - the drive on the FireWire bus is now seen as SCSI drive! Suddenly FWB and ATTO also see it and pretend that they can control it. That, of course, is not the case and, upon attempt to format the drive, they crash, computer hangs and I'm back to doing hard reset. 

[ssp3]

Now comes the strange part.

After switching back to ROM file from 'Mac OS 9.2.2 Unsupported G4' that I've used previously, the drive on FireWire bus was still seen as being SCSI and the system was 'stuck' in this state. Resetting PRAM didn't help. I had to replace the contents of the boot drive from backup for it to return to previous state.

I have a suspicion that the system gets configured the way it has to treat FireWire bus(es) depending on either strings(?) or model numbers in ROM file. I can't explain such big difference with anything else.

Any ideas where to start looking? Can I simply replace model numbers in ROM or is there some checksum involved?

[IIO]

what about connecting a camera or audio interface next?

[ssp3]

I have nothing that's not storage with FireWire at home, only USB. Maybe @DieHard can chime in, since he's playing with some M-Audio stuff right now and he has the same machine

[ssp3]

Now comes the strange part.

Mystery solved! After a bit of a research, this is the conclusion I came to.

The ROM file that made my PowerBook to behave funky came from this CD image:

Mactron Bootable Rescue CD & Disk Repair (Plus Version) w/ optional OS Install
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,1657.0.html

It was made by nanopico in April 2016 and is based on original iMic ROM 10.2.1 (Generic)

Ignoring the differences in Resource fork, these are the differences in boot script:




I think the lines containing processor ID 80010201 are responsible for my PB thinking it has different revision of 7455 PowerPC processor and therefore is some other machine with different set of features.
According to CPU Director, mine has ID 80010303.



This is an interesting issue and needs further investigation. Maybe changing 80010201 to some other ID can help booting or enabling missing features on "problematic" machines..

PowerPC 7445_v1.0        PVR 80010100
PowerPC 7455_v1.0        PVR 80010100
PowerPC 7445_v2.1        PVR 80010201
PowerPC 7455_v2.1        PVR 80010201
PowerPC 7445_v3.2        PVR 80010302
PowerPC 7455_v3.2        PVR 80010302
PowerPC 7445_v3.3        PVR 80010303
PowerPC 7455_v3.3        PVR 80010303
PowerPC 7445_v3.4        PVR 80010304
PowerPC 7455_v3.4        PVR 80010304
PowerPC 7447             PVR 80020102
PowerPC 7457             PVR 80020102
PowerPC Apollo7          PVR 80020102
PowerPC 7447_v1.0        PVR 80020100
PowerPC 7457_v1.0        PVR 80020100
PowerPC 7447_v1.1        PVR 80020101
PowerPC 7457_v1.1        PVR 80020101
PowerPC 7457_v1.2        PVR 80020102
PowerPC 7447A            PVR 80030102
PowerPC 7457A            PVR 80030102
PowerPC 7447A_v1.0       PVR 80030100
PowerPC 7457A_v1.0       PVR 80030100
PowerPC Apollo7PM        PVR 80030100
PowerPC 7447A_v1.1       PVR 80030101
PowerPC 7457A_v1.1       PVR 80030101
PowerPC 7447A_v1.2       PVR 80030102
PowerPC 7457A_v1.2       PVR 80030102

[joevt]

>Question to Open Firmware experts - is this drive selection screen part of OF or does it happens after OF has done it's thing?

The Boot Manager loads BEFORE Open Firmware.

If you are in the Boot Manager screen, and just select which drive you want to eventually boot from, but DON'T hit the boot key, you can hit Control-Z to go to Open Firmware.

When you give the boot command in Open Firmware, it will boot the OS you selected in Boot Manager.

When in Boot Manager, if you have lots of drives connected, and it is taking a long time to check them all, once you have selected the boot drive, click the mouse once, and then Command-Period will stop the Boot Manager from searching further and start the boot right away.

The Boot Manager is part of Open Firmware. If you hold the Option key at boot, then it runs the Boot Manager Open Firmware code named multi-boot

Some Open Firmware boot steps:

• use-nvramrc? -> nvramrc
• if banner wasn't used in nvramrc -> probe-all, install-console, banner
• reset-nvram-key? -> reset-nvram, reset-all
• diag-boot-key? -> diagnostic-boot
• tdm-key? -> target-mode
• ui-key? -> Open Firmware
• option-key? -> multi-boot
• boot-command or boot

[ssp3]

After extensive test period, I can report that from my FW enclosure collection only two devices produce no errors on my PowerBook G4 FW800 port running OS9.2.2.

1. LaCie Rugged portable, bus powered FW400/800/USB3 2.5" drive enclosure.
https://www.mediaform.com.au/lacie-2tb-rugged-triple-usb3-0-portable-drive/
I have two. One has 2011 firmware, the other has 2012 firmware. They both work. Device is based on Oxford Semiconductor UFS944SE chip.

2. Freecom HD Dock Quattro FW400/800/eSATA/USB2.
https://www.freecom.com/product/hard-drive-dock-quattro-35296/
Based on Initio INIC-1615P chip. Mine has different port layout than the one pictured there.
(This one turned out to be a real gem for disk testing. At first, I didn't want to buy it.)

All remaining enclosures from my list (see first post), produce errors in OS9.

They all are based on Oxford Semiconductor chips - OXUF934A/B, OXUF936 or OXUF943. The majority (80-90%, I guess) of the units from all major manufacturers out there are based on these. I've got an impression that they were the "finest in the industry", but, apparently, it's not the case when it comes to "hacked OS9" compatibility.

I've seen someone mentioned FW enclosures based on some jMicron chip, but I don't have any of those.

There's one option I haven't tried yet - inXtron has firmware for two of the units from my list, that permits booting on OSes that do not support drives over 2TB.
I am willing to try it, but I have to figure out how to make the process reversible. I probably have to write to their tech support first. (Anyone have any direct connections?)

[ssp3]

Additional info - booting capability.

* Freecom HD Dock Quattro is OS9 bootable.

* LaCie Rugged FW-USB3 2011 firmware is OS9 bootable

* LaCie Rugged FW-USB3 2012 firmware is NOT OS9 bootable.

Bear in mind this, if you're going to hunt for LaCie Rugged device! Also, their firmware updater is a "one way ticket "- once you've updated to newer firmware, there is no way back to the old one and no possibility to back it up. I've already tried everything.

LaCie firmwares info:

Code: [Select]

UFS944SE (Rev AC) Currently Running 15:53:10 May 6 2011 (v 3.01.0000.22 INTERNAL USE ONLY)  firmware.


Code: [Select]

UFS944SE (Rev AC) Currently Running 12:56:19 Feb 24 2012 (v 3.01.0005)  firmware.


[ssp3]

I've managed to boot my PowerBook G4 12" 1.5 GHz A1104 into OS9 (I'll make a separate thread on this) and checked a few of my enclosures from the first post that produced errors on FW800 port of 17" PB.
Since 12-er has only one FW400 port, all enclosures that I've checked so far, work without problems on it.

This indicates to me that there's a problem with FW port mapping of "Holy Grail" 17" model.

Can anyone of Open Firmware gurus tell me how to look at firewire in OF and how to disable one or the other FW port in device tree?

Thanks!

[ssp3]

I've been fiddling with 15" 1.33GHz Al PowerBook G4 for a past few days and can report that it has the same problem with FW800 port as the "Holy Grail" 17" 1GHz model.
Those few FireWire enclosures, that work with 17" model, work with this 15" model too (and are bootable). All others produce errors.
Bummer. 

[DieHard]

It's been so long since I tested FW booting with the 17"... but I remember that this FW enclosure has always been able to boot on every tower and every Laptop...
OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MEQMH0GBK/

If I find one of my 17" I will try to verify this, just don't hold your breath because I may have sent them to members, have to check