Hello,

On our main editing PC (Dell 3.2GHz Dual Pentium, 1GB RAM, Windows XP Pro), there are two firewire devices attached to it. A 500GB Seagate external hard drive, and a cheap Panasonic DV camcorder (used simply to capture miniDV).

The Seagate hard drive is configured to stay on all the time (it's frequently used) and not go into any sleep mode of any sort. When I capture into Adobe Premiere Pro 7, the firewire camcorder is powered on and everything works successfully. However, when the camcorder is then powered off (or otherwise disconnected) the Seagate Hard drive shuts down, therefore locking up the entire machine/editing suite and forcing me to pull the plug on the computer (it won't even shut down/restart).

It is necessary for the camcorder to be shut off after capturing, otherwise the audio and video is output through the camcorder (causing an undesirable editing setup).

What on earth is causing the Seagate to shut off when the camcorder is shut off, even when it's directly in use! It doesn't matter whether I'm accessing the drive or not, it just shuts itself down without any option.

This never used to be a problem in the past, and the setup of the editing suite has not changed.

Thanks for your help.

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Originally Posted by wzartv

This never used to be a problem in the past, and the setup of the editing suite has not changed.

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Speculation: Applied any Microsoft security patches or service packs?

Things to try:

1. Updating Firewire controller drivers.
2. Updating hard drive and/or camcorder firmware.
3. Adding an inexpensive Firewire PCI/PCIe expansion card and running the devices on separate controllers.
4. Change cables.
5. Determining if having the editing suite running when the camcorder is turned off has any impact.
6. Isolating which is the "bad" device by trying another identical camcorder or hard drive.
7. Disabling any real-time antivirus scanning during disconnection of camcorder.
8. Updating motherboard BIOS.
   

Does the Firewire controller(s) have any configurable options in Windows' Device Manager?

1. Will try
2. Camcorder cannot be updated, hard drive maybe
3. No more PCI slots on the computer (though this would have been my first solution if I had the space!)
4. No difference
5. No problems when the camcorder is turned off - only when the camcorder is powered on, then shut off while Premiere is open.
6. Doesn't matter what camcorder (we have a bunch)
7. Always have antivirus running, but could be a solution... I'll try it.
8. Definitely a possibility.

The Texas Instruments controller doesn't really have any options besides the basic Resources tab that everything has.

You've provided me with numerous possible solutions - I'll give them a try when I get the chance and see what I come up with! Thanks so much.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wzartv

5. No problems when the camcorder is turned off - only when the camcorder is powered on, then shut off while Premiere is open. 6. Doesn't matter what camcorder (we have a bunch)

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If,
A) Premiere not running while turning camcorder(s) off = no problem; and,
B) Premiere running while turning camcorder(s) off = problem.

then talking to Adobe about hotplugging devices with Premiere or searching their knowledgebase for similar issues or related extension updates may be informative.

Well, the thing is, the hard drive will shut down when turning off the firewire camcorder no matter what - whether Premiere is open or not.

However, there is only a problem when Premiere is open, because it is accessing all the drives, therefore, the program locks up and locks the entire machine up.

But when the hard drive shuts down when I have a blank desktop, no harm is done, it just needs to be turned back on.

I haven't tried all of the things yet... it's hard to get my hands on it when it's not being used for something important. Thanks for your help.

Hmm... Shutting off the Antivirus seems to have done it. I never would have guessed that. We use Avast Antivirus on all the machines here.

I'm fine with shutting off the Antivirus temporarily if it prevents the whole machine from locking up.

We'll see if that continues to solve the problem. Thanks so much!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wzartv

We'll see if that continues to solve the problem. Thanks so much!

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No problem... see if Avast supports not scanning certain drives/folder/devices and post back if that ultimately doesn't do it.