mkb@ROVER.RI.CMU.EDU (Mike Blackwell) (01/19/88)
I've been using my MacII (with 40M internal hard disk) on its side for about 2 months now, with no problems. As others have mentioned, the only concern is ventilation - you must leave the side vents open. The hard disk is speced to run on its side, that's no problem. I solved the vent problem by propping my Mac on two pieces of 1x2 I found in the trash... cheaper than Kensington's bracket, but not as pretty, I guess. I started with it on the right side, because it fit better on my desk that way, but I had to flip it to the left side, so I could get at the programmer switches. -m- (Arpa: Mike Blackwell@rover.ri.cmu.edu)
dplatt@coherent.uucp (Dave Platt) (01/20/88)
A caution re turning the Mac II on its side: it's possible that some hard
disks may have track-alignment problems if you format them while they're
positioned horizontally and then operate them while positioned vertically...
apparently changing the relative-direction-of-gravity can cause the heads or
head-positioning mechanism to drift a bit out of alignment. I don't know if
this applies to any of the hard disks that are being used in Mac IIs these
days; I do remember that the installation instructions that came with Sun 70-
and 140-meg shoebox disks recommended that the drives be reformatted if they
were switched from a horizontal operating position to a vertical position, or
vice versa.
So... it may not be necessary to dump/reformat/restore, but then again it may
be... and I don't imagine it'd hurt to do so, just in case. Just be _sure_
you have a clean backup before you reformat!
--
Dave Platt
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