cjeffery@arizona.edu (Clinton Jeffery) (08/04/88)
Well, I was shafted by jb technologies, inc., a mailorder firm which sells hard disks in Computer_Shopper. I will email the grisly (and embarrassing) details to those who request it. I just wanted warn others, since I believe there is little else I can do. -- | Clint Jeffery, University of Arizona Department of Computer Science | cjeffery@arizona.edu -or- {ihnp4 noao allegra cmcl2}!arizona!cjeffery --
haugj@pigs.UUCP (Joe Bob Willie) (08/09/88)
In article <6522@megaron.arizona.edu> cjeffery@arizona.edu (Clinton Jeffery) writes: >Well, I was shafted by jb technologies, inc., a mailorder firm >which sells hard disks in Computer_Shopper. I will email the grisly >(and embarrassing) details to those who request it. I just wanted >warn others, since I believe there is little else I can do. PLEASE! post the details and file a complaint with the U. S. Postal Inspectors Office. you can send mail to your local postal inspector by addressing it to Postal Inspector Your Town, Your State Your ZIP -- jfh@rpp386.uucp (The Beach Bum at The Big "D" Home for Wayward Hackers) "Never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity" -- Hanlon's Razor
pfales@ttrde.UUCP (Peter Fales) (08/13/88)
In article <6522@megaron.arizona.edu> cjeffery@arizona.edu (Clinton Jeffery) writes: >Well, I was shafted by jb technologies, inc., a mailorder firm >which sells hard disks in Computer_Shopper. My own experience probably does not warrant the label "shafted," but it did leave my with a bad taste in my mouth relative to j-b technologies: Their add in computer shopper described (along with many others) two drives I was particularly interested in: Lapine LT200 20 MB Half-Height, 65 msec, $195 Lapine LT300 30 MB Half-Height, 40 msec, $279 No other information was provided. I had used the LT200 before and was pleased with it, so I thought this was a good price for the LT300 and purchased one even though I didn't know anything about it. Their add claimed that they would throw in spec sheets for free if requested, so I asked for them. When I received it, almost everything in the add was wrong, or at least misleading, namely: 1) The LT200 and LT300 have the same number of heads and cylinders, the LT300 supports 30 MB only with an RLL controller. (not mentioned in the add) 2) The LT200 and LT300 are both 3.5 inch drives, though it did come with the necessary mounting brackets to mount in a half-height slot. 3) The LT200 and LT300 are both 65 msec drives. The is my biggest beef and the one that the company gave me no satisfaction on. The representative I spoke to mumbled something about different manufacturers having different specs and they just print what manufacturer gives them. All this in spite of the fact that their own final-test printout had the 65 msec access time. The bottom line is that I don't think j-b technologies knows much about hard disks and I would not be likely to purchase anything from them in the future. -- Peter Fales UUCP: ...att!ttrde!pfales work: (312) 416-5357 AT&T, Room 2F-217 200 Park Plaza Naperville, IL 60566
ray@ole.UUCP (Ray Berry) (08/17/88)
Well, caveat emptor, as they say... But we all know that vendors will often
stretch the truth a bit in order to get maximize sales. Particularly, with
respect to the access time issue you raise, the defense is "that is the
access time within a 32 MB dos partition. " That leaves a bad taste in
MY mouth too, but I have seen drive manufacturers doing this too (not just
vendors). One such is PRIAM, but there are others. With RLL, it only
takes 17/26 as many cylinders to do 'n' megabytes so the max and average
seeks WITHIN that range will be 1/3 less. This would be a valid argument
only if DOS could access 32 mB max of disk space; I feel it is deliberately
misleading.
There are other companies that sell drives with different model numbers,
which have the same number of heads & cyls- for example:
Miniscribe 6085 (MFM 72 mB), 6128 (rll 109 mB ) ..same # head/cylinders
Seagate 4096 (MFM 80 mB), 4144R (rll 120 mB ) ..same # head/cylinders
Seagate ST251.(mfm 42.8 mB) ST277R (rll, 65 mB) " " "
These drives DO differ in that the read/write electronics have been opti-
mized for the different data encoding schemes. Media may differ, too - I
don't know for sure.
I don't think it is fair to accuse JB of fraud here. After all, they
may be simply printing what was on the mfr's spec sheet. True, they didn't
go to any trouble to clarify- but a few pointed questions would have cor-
rected your erroneous assumptions.
Moral of the story: don't depend on vendors to understand what you are
buying; assumptions can be wrong. Get spec sheets from the drive mfrs or
their representatives for the drives you are interested in. Look them over
carefully. Then you can make an informed purchase. And minimize these
"misunderstandings" :-)
--
--
Ray Berry KB7HT
Seattle Silicon Corp., 3075 112th Ave NE., Bellevue WA 98004
(206) 828 4422 ...!uw-beaver!tikal!ole!ray
=============================================================ejkst@cisunx.UUCP (Eric J. Kennedy) (08/21/88)
In article <677@ttrde.UUCP> pfales@ttrde.UUCP (Peter Fales) writes: >In article <6522@megaron.arizona.edu> cjeffery@arizona.edu (Clinton Jeffery) writes: >>Well, I was shafted by jb technologies, inc., a mailorder firm >>which sells hard disks in Computer_Shopper. >My own experience probably does not warrant the label "shafted," but it >did leave my with a bad taste in my mouth relative to j-b technologies: >The bottom line is that I don't think j-b technologies knows much about >hard disks and I would not be likely to purchase anything from them in >the future. This has been my experience with j-b technologies, also. Lousy deal. No spec sheets. Gave me completely wrong information on a Rodime SCSI drive. ("Take all jumpers off the jumper block to configure it to drive 0." Yeah, right. Took me two weeks to figure out that that was completely wrong.) Sure the drive was cheap. But it still is not working. -- ------------ Eric Kennedy ejkst@cisunx.UUCP
ddl@husc6.harvard.edu (Dan Lanciani) (08/23/88)
In article <11928@cisunx.UUCP>, ejkst@cisunx.UUCP (Eric J. Kennedy) writes: | In article <677@ttrde.UUCP> pfales@ttrde.UUCP (Peter Fales) writes: | >In article <6522@megaron.arizona.edu> cjeffery@arizona.edu (Clinton Jeffery) writes: | >>Well, I was shafted by jb technologies, inc., a mailorder firm | >>which sells hard disks in Computer_Shopper. | | >My own experience probably does not warrant the label "shafted," but it | >did leave my with a bad taste in my mouth relative to j-b technologies: | | >The bottom line is that I don't think j-b technologies knows much about | >hard disks and I would not be likely to purchase anything from them in | >the future. | | This has been my experience with j-b technologies, also. Lousy deal. | No spec sheets. Gave me completely wrong information on a Rodime SCSI | drive. ("Take all jumpers off the jumper block to configure it to | drive 0." Yeah, right. Took me two weeks to figure out that that was | completely wrong.) | | Sure the drive was cheap. But it still is not working. Just to add one more j-b story: I called them about matching Priority One's price on Quantum Q540 drives. (j-b's ad in Computer Shopper says they will match or better any price advertised in the same issue as their's.) After several calls back, and after j-b had checked the price, j-b said they couldn't match the price. Now other than the fact that their ad says they will match prices, this might have been ok. But the j-b salesman felt he had to come up with an excuse which went something like this. "The drives sold by Priority One are a different revision (mumbles something like Priority One's part number which has little to do with the rev of the drive) from the ones we sell. You don't have to worry because PO's drives will work just fine in a PC or AT but only our drives will work in a Wang." When I mentioned that I didn't have a PC or AT the salesman said I should check with my vendor to see if PO's drives would work. When I asked what the difference between the drives was, he said he didn't know. When I asked which rev level he sold, he said he wasn't sure. When I asked which rev level PO sold, he said he didn't know. When I asked which was more recent, he said he assumed his was. I wasn't very happy with this explanation. In case anyone is interested, the rev level of the drives from Priority One (I ordered 5) are M or L (one L/four M's out of five), board # 20-210102. These have worked fine in A Tandy 100, a Z-100, and a couple oy Wyse 286 boxes. Dan Lanciani ddl@harvard.*
Ordania-DM@cup.portal.com (09/12/88)
Well, I believe you all but none of you have done what I consider a very obvious thing: Have any of you contacted the staff at Computer Shopper? On the index page of every issue is a little (read maybe?) notice that says they accept adverts only from reputable dealers. If you have any complaints, then by all means call or write them and express your grievances. So far I haven't done any business with JB and from what I've read here, I don't think I am ever going to. Anyone know where I can get a good MFM/RLL drive cheap? :) (The difference between MFM and RLL drives is the fact that the manufacturer says one will work with RLL and the other won't... the ST225 and ST238 are the same drive!)
seeger@beach.cis.ufl.edu (F. L. Charles Seeger III) (09/13/88)
In article <8995@cup.portal.com> Ordania-DM@cup.portal.com writes: | (The difference between MFM and RLL drives is the fact that the manufacturer |says one will work with RLL and the other won't... the ST225 and ST238 are the |same drive!) No! The ST238R uses plated media, while the ST225 uses oxide. Plated is better because it is harder. Therefore, if a R/W head bounces off the platter surface, there is less chance of permanent damage to the surface and less chance of oxide particles being scrapped off, which can then crash the head somewhere else. For the meager difference in price, the added safety of plated media is a big winner in my book. Regards, Chuck
dougm@venus.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Doug Marshall) (09/14/88)
In article <8995@cup.portal.com> Ordania-DM@cup.portal.com writes: [stuff deleted] > Anyone know where I can get a good MFM/RLL drive cheap? :) > (The difference between MFM and RLL drives is the fact that the manufacturer >says one will work with RLL and the other won't... the ST225 and ST238 are the >same drive!) I spoke with a distributor who said that they are indeed the same physical driveThe only thing they change is the board that is underneath the drive. If you hada board from an ST238 and put it in place of the board on an ST225, you'd have a working ST238. Only problem is, where do you buy them? --- Doug Marshall <Doug.Marshall@SanDiego.NCR.COM> +1 619 485 3494 <...!ncr-sd!venus!dougm> "All of us is smarter than each of us!"
pfales@ttrde.UUCP (Peter Fales) (09/14/88)
In article <8995@cup.portal.com>, Ordania-DM@cup.portal.com writes: > > Well, I believe you all but none of you have done what I consider a very > obvious thing: Have any of you contacted the staff at Computer Shopper? > On the index page of every issue is a little (read maybe?) notice that says > they accept adverts only from reputable dealers. If you have any complaints, > then by all means call or write them and express your grievances. I wrote a letter to Computer Shopper when I was shafted by another mail order company (Don't buy the 80-track floppy driver from Western Systems, it doesn't work.) I never heard a word from Computer Shopper, nor from Western Systems when I wrote asking for a refund, and they are still advertising in CS. While I would not expect them to stop accepting advertising on the strength of one complaint, some sort of acknowledgement would have been nice. -- Peter Fales UUCP: ...att!ttrde!pfales work: (312) 416-5357 AT&T, Room 2F-217 200 Park Plaza Naperville, IL 60566
ward@cfa.harvard.EDU (Steve Ward) (09/15/88)
A disk drive generally consists of two major parts: the head-disk assembly and the drive read/write and control electronics. It is true that the same HDA (head-disk assembly) is commonly used on multiple models of disk drives within many manufacturers' disk drive product lines. Sometimes the electronics read/write and control electronics are quite different, though. On ST506, ESDI, and SCSI disk drives the entire drive electronics is commonly on a single board attached to the HDA. The differences between an ST506 RLL and MFM electronics board can be major in that the data rates are different and encoding/decoding methods are different. The same HDA on two drives does not make them the same drive. It is possible to make a drive (HDA + electronics) that will operate on the ST506 interface for both RLL and MFM encoding methods, but most disk drive manufacturers include optimizations in their electronics for either RLL or MFM, making the drive at least better suited for the recommended encoding method, if not rendering operation for the alternate method impossible. It would be desirable if the ST506 drives were all designed for equally good MFM and RLL performance, but I have been told by disk drive manufacturers that this is not generally the case. At any rate, if the electronics boards are different, even with the same HDA, the drives are not the same. Note that some drives use the same HDA but the manufacturer may use a smaller number of heads/platters in one model. This approach gives the maker commonality of parts and allows different capacity models.
pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (09/15/88)
In article <18161@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> seeger@beach.cis.ufl.edu (F. L. Charles Seeger III) writes: ...In article <8995@cup.portal.com> Ordania-DM@cup.portal.com writes: ...| (The difference between MFM and RLL drives is the fact that the manufacturer ...|says one will work with RLL and the other won't... the ST225 and ST238 are the ...|same drive!) ... ...No! The ST238R uses plated media, while the ST225 uses oxide. Where did you get this information? Originally (at least) the 238s were 225s that passed certain tests. I'm not aware that Seagate has changed their manufacturing process for this drive. Pete