laser-lovers@uw-beaver (06/08/85)
From: David Fuchs <DRF@SU-SCORE.ARPA> It seems that every month or two, our Imagen 8/300 stops running after having trashed its boot diskette. I called their customer support folks, who took my name and address, and promised to send out a replacement right away. They did not seem the least bit surprised that this keeps happening. I checked to make sure that we were using the latest firmware (V2.1). "Yes." Well, then, it sure would be nice if there was a console command to let us make a backup copy of our configured firmware disks, so that we wouldn't have downtime waiting for replacements, no? "Well, they don't want you to do that." Not a very nice attitude, especially considering the high failure rate. Fortunatly, I had saved a copy of the old 2.04 firmware, and we're running from that as best we can. (When our first copy of 2.04 wiped itself out, I took a trip to Imagen and picked up a few extra copies of 2.04. Of course, not everyone is able to do that. Imagen only sent one good copy of 2.1, and I'm not in the mood for another trip.) Is anyone else having this problem? In any case, I suggest that people save their old diskettes in case of emergency, and make sure to keep a written listing of your responses to the "configurator" program handy, so you can re-set-yourself-up when a new disk arrives. (If they're not going to let you back your disks up, at least the machine ought to be able to give you a hardcopy of your entire configuration; after all, it is a printer.) -david -------
nather@utastro.UUCP (06/10/85)
> From: David Fuchs <DRF@SU-SCORE.ARPA> > > It seems that every month or two, our Imagen 8/300 stops running after > having trashed its boot diskette. I called their customer support > folks, who took my name and address, and promised to send out a > replacement right away. They did not seem the least bit surprised > that this keeps happening. I checked to make sure that we were using > the latest firmware (V2.1). "Yes." Well, then, it sure would be nice > if there was a console command to let us make a backup copy of our > configured firmware disks, so that we wouldn't have downtime waiting > for replacements, no? "Well, they don't want you to do that." Not a > very nice attitude, especially considering the high failure rate. > You might have one or two convenient "trashings", suitably reported, to get 1 or 2 backup disks in advance. That way you would not have to live with the downtime. "Enlightened users respond to enlightened corporate policy." -- Ed Nather Astronony Dept, U of Texas @ Austin {allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather nather%utastro.UTEXAS@ut-sally.ARPA
laser-lovers@uw-beaver (06/10/85)
From: imagen!geof@su-shasta.ARPA In response to Dave Fuchs' message about Imagen diskettes, allow me to provide the following information: Imagen's policy is to send two diskettes to each customer, so that the customer should not be without a diskette if one is damaged. Our apologies are extended to Mr. Fuchs if he was mistakenly sent a single diskette. Customers who purchase an Ethernet communications option are sent four diskettes, two for SIO and two for Ethernet (the intent is to allow a customer to be ambivalent about using the Ethernet option). Imagen will replace damaged diskettes with identical ones (the same version of software); an upgrade may be offered to a customer who has purchased printer resident software support [although these customers are probably running the latest software anyway]. Current policy is that copying diskettes is a service we provide (free) to customers, rather than requiring them to do it themselves (and disabling the printer while they do it). This has the advantage that it allows us to monitor the reliability of our diskette hardware. If we see too many requests for diskette replacements, we are probably shipping flakey or misaligned drives and should look to fix the problem. All this is assuming, of course, that our customers are not inconvenienced since they have a spare diskette. This policy could change in the future, especially if this assumption is false. A quick test in my office confirms that version 2.1 and later of the printer software allows for diskettes to be write protected. However, the only thing that the printer writes on the disk is a count of read errors, which is displayed when you run the "information (about) filesystem" command. I believe that the problems with bad diskettes are more likely to be hardware problems -- perhaps that the drive is bad or misaligned, or simply that the diskette is "wearing thin." My advice, if you are worried is NOT to write protect the disks, but to run the "information (about) filesystem" command regularly, and to have the disk replaced if it shows any read errors. Keep the backup in a safe place and switch to it while the replacement diskette is in the mail. A good tip is to always keep the backup diskette configured the way it should be, since the original configuration may not be available to you when the first disk breaks. Also, you should test any new diskette that arrives so that you are not surprised to find that it is bogus when you really need it. We do this test before shipment, but sometimes a diskette is subjected to less than optimal conditions in transit to the customer. - Geof Cooper Imagen
laser-lovers@uw-beaver (06/10/85)
From: Christopher Schmidt <SCHMIDT@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA> Each of our 3 Imagen 8/300's has rejected a V2.1 boot floppy after a couple of months. Imagen has always had replacements in my mailbox within 2 days, so I haven't considered it a problem, though. (I, too, resorted to backing up to V2.04 and wish I had V2.1 spares.) --Christopher -------