alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Alex Pournelle) (09/19/89)
ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith) writes: >Apple gets the drive vendors to make ROM changes to the >drives. For example, the Seagate ST157N drive Apple sells will claim >in the inquiry data to be a Seagate ST157NB. Note that "B" there. >HD Setup looks for this and knows when you have replaced your Apple >drive with a non-Apple Seagate. Very interesting!! As far as I can tell from external tests, this is the ONLY change Apple makes. And frankly, I wouldn't use their partitioning, formatting and setup software anyway--get the disk from BMUG with the partitioners on it, or get La Cie's SilverLining disk if you can--still the best and most careful software out there for Macs. >So, if you sent a broken ST157NB to Seagate, and they had to replace the >controller card, you would probably get an ST157N, which would not work. Unless you used someone else's setup software. But Apple is likely to pounce on you if you restart AppleCare, too--beware. >Apple has claimed somewhere that they make other firmware changes besides >changing the inquiry data, but I am not sure that I believe them. I can't >think of anything that needs to be changed in most current SCSI drives, >and I've never seen any problems when I've used TMON to spoof Apple software >into thinking that a non-Apple drive was an Apple drive. >Does anyone know what other changes, if any, Apple has done to these >disk drives? Mostly rejumpering them to (1) autopark after 30 seconds, where applicable; (2) making them sensitive to SCSI commands for spin-down, so "shut down" does. (You *DO* shut down your Mac properly don't you? Many people don't, and cause many problems later, especially in older, non-self-parking drives.) Alex