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Firewire troubles

I only have an HP Pavilion PC that is running Windows XP SP2. I have had it for about one year now and I use it for all of my photography work. The time needed to download a card full of RAW files has gotten completely unbearable so I bought a Firewire Reader from Sandisk and hoped my problems would be solved. It does not work on my PC. The drive is recognized but I can in no way access it. It just keeps giving me a device I/O error. Sandisk technical support was completely no help at all. I started doing more research into the matter and now it turns out that it is something to do with Windows XP and what their Service Pack 2 did to the Firewire ports. I am not really up on all of the computer stuff but it sounds like a whole lot of people have had this same exact problem and they are none too happy with either Microsoft or Sandisk. Has anyone else had this issue or am I the only XP user left in the world of photography?

By the way, I returned the Firewire reader and ordered just a regular USB 2.0 model that hopefully will at least be an improvement over what I currently have. I have a built-in reader on the front of my PC that takes 4 different kinds of media. Maybe I am wrong and the current one is USB also so the new one I just ordered may not be any better anyway. I guess I wait and see.

Sorry...this should have been a couple of forums down I guess. If someone could move it that would be great.
 

Ray West

New member
Hi James,

I've moved it...

When you say the time has become unbearable, do you mean it has slowed down , or that it is more or less the same speed as initially, but you have become more impatient?

I use XP, I expect many do. usb2 is more or less as fast as firewire. However, I just plug the camera into the usb lead, and let the canon software do its thing. When I have more than one card to deal with, generally they will have previously be saved to a hyperdrive unit - usb2 again.

I'm not familiar with the hp pavilion model you have - if the built in reader is usb1, then usb2 will be a considerable improvement, if you have a usb2 port, that is. (I expect you can get a four way usb pci card for $20.00 or so, if you have no usb2 ports built in.

Best wishes,

Ray
 

Jörgen Nyberg

New member
FWIW I use a Sandisk Firewire on XP SP2, without any trouble (about 20 % faster than USB2, due to lower processor overhead).
SP2's Firewire issue (100Mbit transfer) is fixed long ago, since you say Device I/O, I would think it's a BIOS issue (but if you don't know what BIOS is, don't mess with it).
 
Thanks for moving it Ray. Thanks to you both. It has not slowed down. It has just always taken a long time to upload say 3 or 4 Gigs of RAW files. Like 30 minutes or more. So maybe the built-in is USB 1.0 I am not sure. I will be leaving the BIOS alone as I do not want any troubles that can be avoided by not messing around. I am getting the USB 2.0 reader that will take both CF and SD cards since I use both in my two Nikon bodies. If it is at all faster than the built-in card reader I will be happy enough. I will also just try going straight from the camera and see if that makes any difference. Thank you for the input. James
 

Mike Bailey

pro member
James,

Since the card readers I've seen add a drive letter for each type of card, I limited myself to the two-card type. Don't know what happens with a reader that reads many different cards (extra ten drives letters?), though you'd think there'd be an easy way for the firmware in a card reader to present itself as the same device regardless of the card slot.

That said, I did have an old Lexar firewire reader, which was acceptable (about 300-400 meg a minute) in reading 2 gig Sandisk Ultra II cards, but then I changed to a newer Sandisk SDDRX3 USB-2 SD/CF reader (about $20). With a Sandisk Extreme III 4 gig card, the transfer rate is about 800 meg to 1 gig a minute, to give you a rough idea of should be acceptable transfer rates. I think on the Ultra II (2 gig card) it's more like 600 meg a minute transfer. Ultra II SD cards are similar. These are for 20D, 5D, and SD800 (smaller files, SD) files. Of course the bigger the files mean a little faster rate since more can be transferred per chunk.

This speed was/is under with W2K and XP both (same machine).

Mike
 
Thanks Mike. If I get results that good I will be extremely happy. I use the Extreme III 4gig cards myself in my D200. Thanks also Nill. My computer sees the drive and everything looks and registers ok. It's just when I try to access that drive or double click on it to see contents, that is when I get the device I/O error. I have already returned the Firewire reader now anyway so it does not matter. Thank everyone for their responses and when I get the USB reader I will report on the results. James
 
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