Technical Support FAQ

SeriTek/2EN2 - Power
You have just received a FirmTek SeriTek/2EN2 and it will not power up. Usually, one of two things will cause this. 1. The SeriTek/2EN2 has no hard disks installed or 2. The hard disks are mounted in the front section of the tray which does not allow the hard disk SATA pins to insert into the rear backplane of the enclosure.
SOLUTION: Install the hard disks in the rear section of the tray so that the SATA pins can be seen sticking out past the rear cut out section of the tray. You can see an example here. This will allow the hard disks to spin up and the power lights will shine on the front of the enclosure. The SeriTek/2EN2 fan is temperature controlled. The fan will turn on when the hard disk reaches approximately 93F.

SeriTek/1S2 - Firmware 5.1.3
The hard disk is attached to the SeriTek/1S2 but it will not work reliably with the computer.
SOLUTION: Verify that firmware 5.1.3 is installed. Go to Apple System Profiler: PCI cards and select the SeriTek/1S2 to view the firmware version installed. If it is not 5.1.3, download the firmware from FirmTek.com. Install the new firmware and UNCHECK "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" in System Preferences:Energy Saver. Now reconnect the hard disks to the SeriTek/1S2.

SpyderHUB - Mount Hard Disk
An eSATA hard disk is connected to the SpyderHUB and it will not mount on the desktop or show up in Disk Utility.
SOLUTION: Verify that the SpyderHUB is in JBOD mode. The light on the front far right should shine to indicate JBOD mode is selected. The SpyderHUB is designed to be used with a direct connect enclosure like the SeriTek/2EN2. It is not designed to work with hybrid USB/eSATA or USB/eSATA/FireWire enclosures or optical devices or port multiplier enclosures. If you are using a direct connect enclosure and the hard disk still will not mount try moving the FireWire 800 cable to the second FW800 port. The SpyderHUB runs on FireWire bus power. Remove any other FireWire bus powered devices when using the SpydrHUB. It is possible that even a turned off FireWire enclosure connected to the SpyderHUB can exceed the available FireWire bus power limits.

Mac Pro 2008 EFI Firmware Update 1.3
Customers who have installed the Mac Pro 2008 EFI Firmware update 1.3 report that if a SeriTek/2SE2-E controller is installed in slot 2 it is no longer recognized. This issue does NOT apply to the Mac Pro 2009 models.
SOLUTION: Move the SeriTek/2SE2-E card to slot 3 or 4. This allows the SeriTek/2SE2-E to be recognized by a Mac Pro with the EFI firmware update 1.3 installed. It is unclear why the Apple Firmware 1.3 update disables the SeriTek/2SE2-E in slot 2. However, it is a repeatable bug that is displayed when the 1.3 firmware is installed. You can tell if the firmware update has been applied by identifying the BootROM version in Apple System Profiler. A Mac Pro computer with the update will have a BootROM version of MP31.006C.B05. This firmware update appears to be targeted toward correcting a wake from sleep issue. If the computer already wakes from sleep properly you may not want to apply the firmware update. This is another case of "If the computer is not broken, don't fix it".

Optical Devices - Not Supported
FirmTek SATA host adapters are designed to be used with hard disks. They have not been tested or designed to support SATA optical devices.

Oxford 936QS Enclosure - Volumes over 2TB
Oxford 936QS drivers with support for volumes over 2TB are not installed in Mac OS X 10.4.11. With 10.4.11 installed, the first 2TB are seen by the computer but if the rest of the volume is accessed errors will occur. Installing Mac OS X 10.5.6 or higher should correct the issue.

Contacting Support

Support Requests
If you require assistance with a FirmTek product please use the web form below. Include the following information with each support request.

Macintosh Users-- Please provide a copy of your System Profiler data file: a) Go to the Apple icon on the upper left side of the screen. b) Pull down to "About this Mac." c) Select "More Info." d) Next, go to "File:Save as." e) Finally, use the default System Profiler 4.0 (XML) format and attach the resulting output file to the request below.
Include the model name of the FirmTek product requiring support.
What computer brand and model is being used?
Provide the operating system version installed.
Include the model name of the hard drive enclosure used (if any).
What hard drive brand(s) and model(s) are connected to the host adapter?
Please provide details concerning the problem you are experiencing. Thank you!

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