E arlier this morning, we reported that Apple had published a note concerning problems with FireWire 800 drives using the Oxford 922 bridge. As said in that report, Apple made no indication in that statement that the problems involved Panther, though numerous reports from tech site MacFixit had suggested otherwise. This afternoon, we received a statement from Oxford Semiconductor, the maker of the Oxford 922 FireWire 800 bridge, concerning the problem.
In the statement, the company says that the problem centers around the driver for the bridge included in Panther, as opposed to it being a hardware problem with the bridge itself, and that a new driver had been released to hardware manufacturers. From Oxford Seminconductor:
Company statement: FireWire800 drives / Panther OS
Oxford Semiconductor is actively investigating reports that certain FireWire800 drives have lost data following an upgrade to the Panther operating system for Apple computers (released late October).
We currently believe that this issue relates to a change in the way Panther uses FireWire, which affected version 1.02 of the OXUF922 driver software. A new version, 1.05 was issued by Oxford Semiconductor to the manufacturers of external drive products in September.
We advise end users to contact the product manufacturer to get an upgrade of software to the latest version.
As there is currently no evidence that this issue is purely related to Oxfordis 922 based drives, Oxford Semiconductor is advising all FireWire drive users to take advantage of further Panther revisions as they arise.
You can find more information on Oxford Semiconductor at the companyis Web site.