Ok, now I'm really pissed. Network storage heads up.

[Error401]

Well, I got a network storage unit so I could just put files up on it and access them from multiple workstations. The unit is a NetDisk from Ximeta. I've used Iomega and Snap servers before and thought that this would be kind of similar in useage. Wrong. The Ximeta unit does not use an imbeded OS or even IP based access. What it is, is an external USB2 or ethernet drive. I wanted it for the ether capability without running a machine 24/7 just for file storage. Boy, was I in for a rude awakening. The box said that multiple networked machines can access the disk and it's OS X compatable. "Super" thinks I. What I ended up finding out is that the disk is accessed and utilized by a client side driver. This driver fools the OS (win and Mac) into thinking that the disk is actually a scsi drive. On top of that, only the 2K and XP boxes have multi-write access (of which I only have 1 XP box that I use). The Mac driver does not support multi-write access. Ok, so I'll give the G4 write access and pull stuff off of it on other machines. Well, come to find out, the Mac driver screws up the sleep/hibernate power feature. It now will not go all the way to sleep, and will not wake up anymore. Sky tried helping me work this out, but I'm just going to upgrade to OS 10.3 with a fresh install, no biggie. Oh, and to use the full 160Gb disk with OS X, I have to format it in MAC FS Extended, or cut it up into a bunch of 32Gb FAT32 disks. Doesn't that suck.

Just now, I went to add a new user into the XP machine and the friggin Ximeta crap has hosed up the users and groups. I can get the user list, and the group list, but the users are no longer part of any groups, and I can't add the users into the groups that are in the group list. just says there's some unknown error. This happened after I installed the stupid NDAS driver that is needed to use the Ximeta disk. How the hell did they manage to hose up a core component of XP ike that?

To make a long story short, DO NOT GET AN XIMETA NETDISK. If you do, DO NOT INSTALL THE NDAS DRIVER. When I get my boxes fixed, I'll only use the disk as a USB2 external drive. What a POS.

I am now so pissed at Ximeta and their POS disk that I can't see strait. Looks like I'm going to be installing 2 OS's this weekend.

 

[mcvickj]

Sorry to hear about your problems Error. When you get your money back try taking a look at the Iomega NAS. We have one at work and have good success with it.

 

[Error401]

Thanks man, but I'll probably keep the drive and use it as a USB2 drive. The hardware is nice, but the network client driver software causes alot of problems. I really posted this to give other people a heads up on the misinformation that's on the box. I'm going to put OS 10.3 on the G4 and it can read NTFS, so it'll work out in the end. It just pisses me off when stuff is promoted as doing one thing and being the best thing since sliced bread, and it turns out to be a handfull of problems.

 

[mcvickj]

Do you plan on trying to get some satisfaction with the company? I know OS X 10.3 can read NTFS but I thought writing to an NTFS partition was still expermential.

Just a thought....did you try using the rollback feature in XP? Might save you from reformatting. I am not sure if OS X has anything like that.

 

[Error401]

I'm sure that the company covered their ass on the OS X issue and would probably give me the "what do ya want us to do about it" line. XP, I'll try the roll back, but it looks like some of the core NT stuff got hosed. maybe it'll work, but I'm not counting on it.

As far as doing an OS install on the Mac, it's been needing one for a while now. IE keeps crashing, but Safari is pretty stable (though it doesn't like all webpages). There's alot of trial ware that I have yet to figure out how to clean out, and now the hibernation issue. I'm running 10.3 on a Powerbook, and am very impressed with it, so I guess it's as good a time as any to format and install.

I'll keep my happy thoughts and hope that everything ends up working out.