perez@andromeda.rutgers.edu.rutgers.edu (William Perez) (03/10/90)
First of all, I want to thank everyone who replied to my survey. Flames: ------ Recently I saw someone verbally attacked for responding to my ad from comp.sys.mac.programmer. First of all, I would like to say that I requested everyone to reply to me via email to avoid these problems. Secondly, I wish to remind everyone on comp.sys.mac.programmer and comp.sys.mac.hypercard: Surprise! you depend on disk drives just as much as everyone else. I purposely posted to all comp.sys.mac* groups to get an even distribution of people. If you have a Mac, you have a disk drive. Chances are you have an FDHD drive too since only the Plus doesn't carry it. Intro: ----- My problem, although I am no technician, seems to have a decent solution. My survey dealt specifically with the curious problems the FDHD (Superdrive) had writing/formatting disks. For those worried about disk shutters getting trapped in the drive, I suggest upgrading to system 6.0.4 or getting either of the INIT's: Apple's 800K eject disk INIT or SafeEject. Let me shed some light on the issue... Your Macintosh has an internal fan that is blowing air out as long as it is on. You have a disk drive that is an open hole, therefore, air is being sucked in through the disk drive. Disks have a shutter so that nothing should come in contact with it except the read/write heads. When a disk is inserted into the drive, the shutter is open and succeptible to all the floating or accumulated dust. The FDHD drive is a very sensative piece of equipment. Think of it, it has to read/write to 400K, 800K, 1.44 meg floppies and DOS disks. It seems that the FDHD is more sensative to disk errors than the other drives. So while your disk may have a dust on it, the FDHD is sensative to it while an 800K drive might not be. This doesn't mean that there is nothing wrong with your disk, just that the 800K drive isn't really bothered by it... yet! Quality: ------- If you decide to use cheap, no-name, Brand-X disks, you get what you pay for. You think we would ever learn our lesson? Bulk Sony disks doesn't mean they're just as good as market Sony disks. These are disks that Sony has decided not to sell with their regular quality merchandise. They don't say SONY anywhere on them. While they may be guaranted for life, better safe than sorry. I have 35 disks sitting next to me--guaranteed for life. The FDHD drive doesn't "like" these cheepo disks. I had a rude awakening the first day I popped one in my drive. Formatting: ---------- Some of you realized this problem when you tried to initialize a new disk or through an "Erase disk" option. Do remember that when you format a disk through the finder, it performs a verification that I believe MacTools doesn't do. It will check to see if the disk initialized properly and is usuable. If it finds a bad sector, such as dust? or bad quality? or both? it will be considered unusable. Sometimes you will want to erase your disk to reclaim "that extra disk space." Let me remind you that each and every disk has an invisible file called "Desktop" that grows bigger everytime you copy a new program onto it. Erase disk is reformatting your disk and erasing that file. You can erase that file through many other means. There isn't a problem with the initialization process, it just found problems with your disk that you didn't know were there yet or just happened. Solutions: --------- Everyone with a disk drive should stick to these rules religiously: 1. Get a disk drive cleaner and clean it approximately once a month. It gets all the dust/dirt off all the involved parts. Do not open up your Macintosh. It will invalidate your warranty and a thorough cleaning, while not always neccessary, requires special tools and solutions. 2. Avoid cheap disks. While it does seem like a nice bargain, it's not worth it. Of those who responded, quality disks played an important difference. 3. Moving your Mac around, switching it from horizontal to vertical, using a hair dryer near it, smoking around it will just aggrivate the problem. 4. Make a little paper flap for the opening of your drive. It will prevent, for the most part, dust from entering in. I believe there is a "door" type utilty being created for the drive opening by commercial industries. I hope Apple considers this for future Macintosh models. Thanks again all who responded. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> <>William Perez <> Internet: perez@andromeda.rutgers.edu <> <>RPO 0043 POBox 5063 <> GEnie: W.PEREZ1 <> <>New Brunswick, NJ 08903 <> America Online: WilliWonka <> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>