brian@cvl.umd.edu (Brian Miller) (04/09/89)
Hello all. I have a small problem that I'm hoping someone can help me with. Recently, the hard disk of a friend of mine crashed, and indicated that the boot track was trashed. Not having any neato-keen utilities available, we decided to go ahead and try to reformat (nothing on the disk was critical to him). Well, to make a long story short, it didn't work. Here are the particluars: MiniScribe 40 Meg Western-Digital controller (MFM I believe) Kaypro 10Mhz XT clone Dos 3.x (not 3.3 tho') We tried to use the program on the controller board (the g=c800:5 trick), but when it attempted to format, it exited with completion code 80. Nothing in any of the documantation explained this, so we are in the dark about what to do. I'm sorry the info is somewhat sketchy, but we were doing this at 2 in the morning over the phone. On a different note, he called the people he bought the computer from (they also did the setup) and they indicated that a) yes, there had been a very large number of complaints about this drive and, b) no, there was nothing that they could do for him, because the system was 2 months out of warranty. From the way the story was related to me, it seemed like these people knew that there was going to be problems with this drive, but they were hoping that it would happen out of warranty. They were kind enough to give my friend the address of a place to get the drive fixed (at $100 an hour, and an estimated 3 1/2 hours to repair). Is there any way to get at least _some_ of the money for repairs from these people? Thank you very much for any assistance. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Has anyone seen my old friend brain? University of Merryland, Center for Automation Research "Every day is a holiday here at CFAR!!" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright) (04/10/89)
In article <3607@cvl.umd.edu>, brian@cvl.umd.edu (Brian Miller) writes: > Recently, the hard disk of a friend of mine crashed, and indicated > that the boot track was trashed. Not having any neato-keen utilities > available, we decided to go ahead and try to reformat (nothing on > the disk was critical to him). Well, to make a long story short, > it didn't work. > > Here are the particluars: > MiniScribe 40 Meg > Western-Digital controller (MFM I believe) > Kaypro 10Mhz XT clone > Dos 3.x (not 3.3 tho') > We tried to use the program on the controller board (the g=c800:5 trick), > but when it attempted to format, it exited with completion code 80. > Nothing in any of the documantation explained this, so we are in the > dark about what to do. I'm sorry the info is somewhat sketchy, but we > were doing this at 2 in the morning over the phone. You might try putting the disk drive into another machine with a different controller and different cables. (not necessarily a different controller model, just a different controller). I have sometimes known controller or cable problems to masquerade as disk drive problems. The probability is high that it's a disk problem however. If there was no warning (bad sectors and so forth) before the disk drive stopped working, and if the machine was not abused (such as moving it while it was turned on, dropping it, etc), there is a good chance that it's just the drive electronics that have gone bad. This is somewhat more repairable than if the head assembly or the media have been damaged, which leads us to: > They were kind enough to give my friend the address of a > place to get the drive fixed (at $100 an hour, and an estimated > 3 1/2 hours to repair). Is there any way to get at least _some_ of > the money for repairs from these people? It is quite likely that if the only problem is a drive electronics problem, that the disk drive repair place can repair the disk for a (somewhat) reasonable price. The bad news is that it is unlikely that they will be able to restore it to factory specs - the electronics need to be adjusted at the factory (there are slight variations in different "identical" electronic components which have to be compensated for). The drive repair place is unlikely to have either the equipment or the expertise to do this. If the problem is with the heads or the media, that will involve opening the drive itself which is quite likely to reduce the life expectancy of the repaired drive. If you can afford it, it is usually best to get another -new- drive. Barring that, most drive manufacturers have a program under which they will ship you a refurbished drive to swap for your old drive (they will then be able to refurbish your drive and as noted above they are more likely to be in a better position to do this than a brand-X drive repair place). The drawback is that they are likely to charge more than the brand-X repair place (though not as much as for a new drive). They are also more likely to give some sort of limited warranty. As far as getting the place to pay for the repair/replacement of the drive, don't count on it. They may or may not have a moral obligation, but from your description they probably don't have a legal obligation unless they -knew- that that particular drive was defective. A high out-of-warranty failure rate (which is likely to be significantly less than 100% or even 25%) is probably not enough. From the point of view of the retailer, a warranty is a lot of trouble - even if it's covered by the factory, there are still a lot of forms to fill out and so forth. Therefore, those places which allow a longer warranty (or allow you to purchase an extended warranty) generally will charge a higher price for it whether it is a factory warranty or the merchant's own warranty. (It may be worth it to find a retailer from whom you can buy an extended warranty - even if you don't buy it, the price will give you an idea of the estimate of the warrantor (merchant or factory) of how often the drive will need repair. Good luck. We've had to fight a -lot- of bad disk problems on our PCs and it isn't very pleasant. Bruce C. Wright
jc58+@andrew.cmu.edu (Johnny J. Chin) (04/12/89)
Okay ... in order for me to start to answer your question, I need more info
about your controller card. Western Digital makes over 2 dozen controllers.
As for MFM controllers, they make about 4 controllers (which are recently
new) and each of these 4 have about 4 versions each.
One thing that I can suggest to you is to get a program called SpedStor by
Storage Dimensions (a Maxtor Company). [Aside: Some people may recommend
Disk Manager by Ontrack, but I advise you to use SpedStor because its much
more user friendly and at times more powerful.]
Using SpedStor you can reformat this drive ... EVEN IF YOU CONTROLLER CAN NOT
HANDLE THE DRIVE PROPERLY. SpedStor will also test and diagnose the controller
to see if it is defective. Unfortunately, I don't know the price of SpedStor.
If you have problems using SpedStor or continue to have problems formatting the
drive, don't hesitate to drop me a mail message.
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Computer Dr.
Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are STRICTLY my own, and not CMU's.