trewitt@cascade.Stanford.EDU (Glenn Trewitt) (08/22/89)
Woe is me! The 800K internal floppy drive on my Mac II just died. The cause
of death is quite obvious -- the upper head came loose and was ripped the rest
of the way off by the next floppy I inserted. I am a Stanford student, so I
can get educational consortium prices for either repairs or replacements. The
two options that I have right now are:
1) Pay $159 and get an Official Apple-Sanctioned replacement. For
an additional $25 (for installation) I would get an Official Apple
90-day warrantee.
2) Pay $415 and get a ROM upgrade and FDHD (1.44 Mbyte) drive, and a
90-day warrantee.
3) Do both of the above and have two not-completely-compatable drives.
This seems like a questionable idea, since some of my disks would
then be readable only on one drive. Also not much need, since I
have a hard disk.
Now for the questions:
0) I presume that Apple is the only source for the FDHD upgrade.
(I can't imagine otherwise.)
1) Is it worth it to upgrade to the FDHD? I understand the benefits of
the increased capacity, but am concerned about compatability.
Specifically, high-density drives write much narrower tracks. On
IBM 5-1/4" drives, this can cause marginal reading performance by
older normal-density drives because they expect wider tracks and
aren't quite sensitive enough to read the narrower high-density
tracks reliably.
1.5) If I get the FDHD, does Apple provide any *software* to read/write
IBM-format diskettes? This could be a big plus. Or do I have to
buy translators from DataViz?
2) Are there third-party 800K drives that will mount inside a Mac II?
If so, who sells them?
3) Can Apple external 800K drives be un-shelled and mounted internally?
I might be able to get one of these sort-of cheaply.
4) Is there anyone that actually repairs these things? The head has
plug-in connections, so it would just be a matter of replacement
and re-aliginment (right?). (SF Bay-area only, please.)
5) Have I left out any options?
I've borrowed a drive from a friend (may you be blessed forever, John!),
so I am not in a severe rush -- I can take my time.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
- Glenn Trewitt
--
Glenn Trewitt, Center for Integrated Systems, Stanford University
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