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News Archive for Thursday Dec. 10, 2009 Goto Current News Page
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| Notes from MacBook Pro owner on using 2.5in Seagate 640GB HD (from FreeAgent GO USB case) |
In reply to yesterday's reports from Macbook/MacBook Pro/Mini users of WD 640GB/750GB notebook drives a reader with an early (Core duo) 17in MacBook Pro wrote he'd pulled the 640GB drive out of a Seagate FreeAgent Go 640GB USB case to use as an internal drive. (For readers that missed the past post on it - the FreeAgent Go 1TB (and reportedly 880GB) HDs are 15mm high - too tall to fit.)
He mentioned problems initially with it not waking from sleep but said applying a patch 'for macs' from Seagate for the problem solved that. I wrote to ask if he had the link to that Seagate page (to save time finding it myself). I'm guessing it was an APM related patch perhaps vs a drive firmware flasher. (Since most drive mfr's firmware updaters won't run in OS X.) I'll post that info/link as soon as I receive it.
Update: - Friday night I recd a reply from Walt with a link to a FreeAgent Go sleep disable utility ("seagate sleep override utility"). Here's the Seagate notes on it:
"The drive may go to sleep on its own. If it does, you can download the utility below to prevent the drive from going to sleep. Keep in mind the drive will still be controlled by the MacOS power management features, which are set in Mac System Preferences.
FreeAgent Go sleep disable utility:
a. Download the enclosed DMG file to your desktop.
b. Double-click the file to start the install process.
c. Follow the onscreen instructions to install.
d. During the install, the utility performs the sleep disable function, so no further steps are needed once the installation completes.
Note: If the drive is put on a Windows computer and the sleep time is adjusted with Seagate Manager, then this utility can be installed again on the Mac to disable the sleep function."
The above seagate info is referring to the USB cased drives, so I wrote Walt again to confirm that he'd removed the drive from the USB case and still used this utility - he said yes. He'd formatted/installed Snow Leopard on the 640GB HD in the USB case and then swapped it inside the MacBook Pro.
The Seagate sleep disable utility DMG download is dated Nov. 17th, 2008 so I wanted to confirm it still worked under Snow Leopard. He replied he had ran it (again) on the drive (internal) which is running OS X Snow Leopard.
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| FYI on Problems running The Saboteur (PC game) on Dual CPU 2009 Mac Pro |
Not sure if any other readers are considering buying this recently released game (looks interesting, I linked to a couple reviews earlier this week) but had a mail/warning last night from a dual 2.66 Mac Pro (2009) owner that it fails to launch on his system in Vista (bootcamp). This reminded me of the link I posted in the other news listing yesterday on problems in EA's forum from ATI (radeon 3000-5000 series) card owners with this game where one workaround was to use MSConfig to limit cores/cpus. (I've seen similar tips for other games in the past on systems like this, but it's not worth it IMHO.) EA support now has related kbase items on problems with the game, but no fixes/updates yet. I suggested he run the "Launch Analysis" option (right click on game's app/icon for that option) and send the resulting log file to EA support. (Apparently it uses SecureRom, but he had other games working that also used it, so assuming it wasn't a SecureRom install issue.)
Hopefully they'll have a patch/update soon to address these problems but just a FYI since in the US at least, once you break the seal, you can't return it. [Update - there's now a forum post on PC patch status with some flames from those that bought it, including a petition for an Apology from EA.] Not sure if the same problems would be seen on single CPU 09 Mac Pros (Xeon 3500 cpu based). For what it's worth, it does seem to run on a Core 2 Quad PC w/GTX-285/Win 7 - but even some nvidia card users have reported problems (freezes after 20min or so of play, etc). Deja-Vu (throw it out there for the holiday sales, patch it later...) |
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