The Firmware Page

lewcid,
I tested my system by doing 90+GB transfers...took awhile, But I could set it and forget it until I checked on it again. Then I would copy files back and do file compare. I also ran several instances af BusTrace HD Stress Test throughout the day, some sequentially. The only error I have incurred since stabilizing my external case was self induced & easily recoverable.
I hear both good & bad about Partition Magic....Were it me, I would reformat using Win XP disk management.

New revision is out for the Prolific PL-3507(B,C).
The number is 2004.12.09.200
Regards

Sorry guys, scimmed thru the thread, but couldn't spot a solution to my roblem.

I brought one of the external USB2.0/Firewire enclosures from SVP yesterday, but I can't get Windows to show it. I've updated the firmware to "fw_pl3507B_d110904(updated Prolific firmware I've got, only for B and C chips)" from here, but still same problem. My hard drive does show up in Disck Drives (Samsung 120gb), but doesn't show under My Computer. Using USB 2.0.

Can anyone tell me what needs to be done to get it to work?

I also tried using Firewire, but same problem.

Thanks in advance!!

You may need to format the drive. With xp look in the my computer under computer management / disk management. Click on the drive and see if you have the option to format it.

Many thanks. I didn't know it had to be done that way.

Seems to be working now. Cheers.

Btw, is it possible to have the external enclosure to be plugged into one PC using USB 2.0 and also to another PC through Firewire? Would both systems be able to use it at the same time without causing any problems?

First of all thanks for coming back to let us know you were assisted and it actually worked. lol

The answer to your other question would be a big resounding NEVER! to hooking the drive to 2 computers at once. Also I might mention that you must choose which style to use (usb or IEEE1394) and use only one connection at a time. Do not connect both usb and fw to your computer at the same time. The drive must either be a usb or a IEEE1394 at any given time. You may change from and use each style at your will of course. I highly recommend that you always use the "remove device safely" icon when mounting or unmounting the drive and do not count on "hot plugging" working perfectly in your favor every time.
I have found that firewire is faster with hard drives on sustained file transfer speeds but your results may vary. I always use firewire when I have an optical device in the enclosure. I have four external cases with pl3507 chips.

Hope that helps and enjoy your drive.

Regards, Bob

I've been running at the 11/09/2004 v185 firmware for 2 weeks now. All smooth sailing. I've been using the drive continuously. I've had BT torrents going, downloading to the drive, 24/7, playing mp3's off of it, have transferred many files there and back, and have even run games and applications off of it.

Just thought Id let everyone know.

Cheers

And where would we go about getting this version????

Try here:
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php ... post844002

It is posted on the cdfreaks forum under external firmwares and was tricky for me to find. However the difference between the 2 are not much at all. The 185 is basically just as good.

Oic. Thanks for the heads up. It would've been great if it could be used like that, but can't complain. At least I've got a reason to get up from time to time.

Thanks for the help!!

FYI Only...

I'm using e Pioneer 106D in an external case with the PL-3507 chip. Normally it is used via IEEE1394. I updated the external case firmware to the 2004.12.09.200 version. With usb attempting to burn a dvd got the infamous "scsi command aborted" error and a coaster of course. The drive works perfectly with the same media, firmware, etc using IEEE1394 every time.

Hello guys,
sorry to bother you! I wish to have seen this forum before buying my external enclosure ! I am aware now about the "delay problem"!
But here I have a different one, maybe associated to the other!

I bought from dealsonic a combo (Firewire/USB2.0) stortecc 3.5'' aluminium ext. enclosure (model PM-350c2-eps). I liked it because it has also 2 fans. However, I coupled it with a WD 250 hdd (Wd25000jb). Everything works fine in my laptop when I use usb, but when I connect the firewire, device manager says that it is impossible to start the hdd (Code 10).
I looked around in this forum, and I have a Prolific PL-350 chipset.
I've already downloaded them but they are not able to access the chip (usual message with rejected).
When I read it, it says:
ROM sz --> 32KB
FW ver --> 2004.02.12.062
Vendor ID --> 0X02
Chip ID --> 0X27

My laptop is a little bit old and it doesn't have USB2.0! That's why I would like to use FW instead.
Everyone has an idea?
Thanks in advance,
m.

ansarpro, please get back to me. I've done every combination of the four flash utils and the three firmwares, and it still reports bacl as 2003.06.19.241.

thanks

If you own a COMPUSA SKU 306103 enclosure, return it. It is junk. I ruined information on 2 hard drives and wasted 3 days on these inferior enclosures. Compusa will not stand behind them and FMI (the manufacturer) will not stand behind them. I'm not really sure why they are still on the shelves. I bought 2 just the other day and both have the latest firmware already installed. Both have corrupted the harddrives that I installed and I had to spend $50 on software and countless hours just to retrieve the data.

I will be buying an enclosure with the Oxford chipset and a fan in the future. Other than the fact that the Prolific chipset is anything but prolific, the Compusa enclosure made the drives very hot. It is a poor design all around.

Mike

Sorry this happened to you. I did my best to report it here before anyone else got bit:
http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?t=31559

I bought a ext. case with Prolific chip as well,
but when i try to flashing the firmware,
the rom program erase my flash and shows error when flash it.

And now, i got a dead box....
it has the same chips as the post mentioned by SciFi.
Atmel flash chip.........

Hey all. I was juuuust about to buy the ME-740U2F from newegg.com when I found this thread. Whew! I saw that the firewire-onlly version 740F uses the Oxford 911 which is good. But I'd like to have some versatility with USB2.

So, for those who have successfully flashed their firmware and are now running just fine (or if your drive was running fine before), could you perhaps post some benchmarks from using 7200 harddrives with SiSoft Sandra or HDtach 3.0?

Basically, if the Profilic chipset with firmware update can outperform the Oxford 911, then I'll be taking the risk of buying the Profilic chipset.

(Those with Oxford 911 chipsets can post benchmarks too!)


Thanks, all

i c the last post here was 2 weeks ago ...ive read the entire post and tried ...everything. my problem that the buffer on the wurter flucuates from ~20%-~80% the entire burn. ive upgreaded all the firmwares from the motherboard on my pc(dun member this 1) to the case (pl3507) to the drive (gsa-4160b).

i know i read somewhere that some1 had this same problem but as far as i know that was never resolved. ive tried this via usb1.1 and firewire (currently connecting it via firewire comes up as not working - yellow exclamation point) then i try to uninstall the driver and the device manager freezes

ive sent in my laptop for any number of problems all no doubt steming from the fact that the thing has overrheated since the day i bought it! ...anyway ima wait to c if firewire works when it get back and if t he firmwares work but in the mean time i wanted to c if noe1 has found a fix to this particular problem

thnx
-nomad311

What you are describing above, is the fact that the LapTop you are using can't keep-up with the DVD drive. Since the drive is not internally installed you don't have UDMA issues.

Would recommend defragging the hard drive and try again. Next get the FREE program called HDTune and see how fast you HD is...

beach-hobo is right on the money with his response about the laptop not keeping up with the drive needs. I think the only way out of this one is to get that firewire fixed on that laptop or perhaps a USB 2.0 pcmci card. The drive may also possibly cooperate better if the burner burned at a slower speed. It is very doubtful IMO that defragging the hard drive would have much of a positive effect at all.

Good luck nomad311.

I own a hard disk enclosure with the famous Prolific 3507 chipset (rev C). It always disconnected when writing a lot to the disk (WD). I can't say this appeared only when writing large files but also when writing lots of small files or doing write and read at the same time.

It always passed the bustrace delayed write failure test with success. I updated to the latest firmware 2004.12.09.200 and it still passes the test with no errors, but it already disconnected twice since I upgraded a few hours ago, it just seems to be faster now.

anyway, I'm going to get me a different enclosure tomorrow.

good luck to the 3507 community,
numbernine

You got me all worried.

I have two external enclosures that I run exclusively via FireWire-400 on a Mac OS X Panther (10.3.9) machine and to be honest I have not run into any problems.

I had a 5.25" enclosure first as I was thinking of putting removeable 3.5" HD rail system in it which didn't fit inside so I scratched that idea and put my HD directly mounted into the enclosure box.

I ordered a 3.5" enclosure and moved the hard drive to that because a new Nec 3520A DVD-DL burner is going to go into the 5.25" box.

The hard disk is already moved into the 3.5" which works fine as well but I think I feel its a "little" slower at transfering files? I normally transfer 4.5 Gigabyte files back and forth a lot. In the 5.25 enclosure the initial time reporting was about 4 minutes. In the 3.5 enclosure the initial time is sometimes as high as 7 minutes but shrinks down although I feel its closer to 5 minutes--again I havn't taken the time to get any benchmark apps and put it to the test.

I do want to take these boxes and share them with PC users so I'll eventually have to find a PC to plug them into via USB and download the utilies to see what version binaries are loaded on each box--again I have not had any problems *yet* but I will daisy chain the two devices off of the 1394 bus and thats where I hear one of the many potential problems could be.

I did take the time to examine both sides of each enlcosures PC boards and write down the chip #'s. I think both are on the *OK TO FLASH* list.

One thing that struck me as very odd is the 3.5" box does not report manufacturer information to the System Profiler utility while the 5.25" box gave much more information. Without opening and physically inspecting the 3.5" enclosure you could never hope to glean that it was a Prologic 3507 bridge!

3.5" Enclosure

Bridge:
PL-3507
05114C

Flash:
SST
MPF
39VF512
90-4C-NH
0128026-D

FireWire:
AGERE
FW802B
65518433
0502T

Mac OS X Panther (10.3.9)
System Profiler Report:

FireWire Bus:

Speed: 400 Mb/sec Speed

:

Capacity: 186.31 GB
Manufacturer:
Model:
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk2
OS9 Drivers: No
Speed: 400 Mb/sec Speed
Unit Spec Id: 24734
Firmware Revision:
Unit Software Version: 10483

External 200GB:

Capacity: 186.19 GB
Available: 114.26 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk2s3
Mount Point: /Volumes/External 200GB



5.25" Enclosure

Bridge:
PL-3507
03381C

Flash:
PMC Flash
MH0W8
0338
Pm39LV512-70JC

FireWire:
AGERE
FW802B
55840433
0335T

Hi All,
I've got some problems with this external enclosure.
1) Can't get it to work at all using firewire
Go to device manager and it's there but has a problem.
Normally code 10
2) I've also had the drive vanish when transfering many files, big or small don't make no difference.
Using usb 2.0
Tried many firmwares and different settings, dissabling power management for the drive, turning off power saving features for the usb root hub, unpluging all other usb devices and trying it on it's own.
No Luck There!!!
So I have come to the conclusion this enclosure and all enclosures using the pl3507 A B & C chips are a piece of crap !!!!!

And Strongly Advise Anyone Getting An Enclosure To Steer Well Clear Of These.

Excalibre.