youngm@ihlpg.UUCP (Condor strikes again.) (09/19/85)
Fellow Macowners: I've been having some trouble with my mac lately; maybe you know what's going on. I've got a 512K mac with an external drive. The trouble is that my external drive seems to be destroying disks. About 4 weeks ago I launched an application from the external drive, and after churning away for a while, the mac announced that the disk was bad. It also couldn't initialize the bloody thing. I was dismayed (since that disk had some documents I'd been working on stored), but, like a fool, I put in another disk, this time one that I had a copy of, and sure enough, when I tried to launch an application, another disk bit the dust. Both disks were Memorex. I tried a new disk, this one brand new, and a Sony by the way, and it initialized, and I was able to copy an application over to it and launch it, from the external drive. Not wanting to make any more offerings to my little monster, I took it into my friendly Apple dealer. Guess what. It ran fine all weekend long in the shop (isn't that the way it always seems to happen?). So I got my mac back, and it worked perfectly, until last week. Then the same problem happened again. Two more Memorex disks died, but my Sonys work fine. Maybe I'm getting a little paranoid, but my external drive seems to be singing a little off key-the motor sounds a little weaker and wavery than the one in my internal drive. Is this normal? So have you got any good theories? I suspect that Sony disks are higher quality than Memorex, and perhaps there is a slight motor speed problem in the external drive, to which the Memorexes are more sensitive. But then why can't I even initialize them, and by the way, they won't even initialize in the internal drive. I will greatly appreciate any help or suggestions you can give. Please reply by mail, but if there is interest I'll post the prognosis to the net. Thanks in advance, Mark T. Young AT&T Bell Laboratories Naperville, Ill