[comp.sys.mac.hardware] Help Raise the Dead!

jnsims01@ulkyvx.bitnet (06/18/91)

In case you don't recognize it, The Tecmar MacDrive (tm) was a 10MB hard drive
which connected to the early Mac's via the serial (that's right!) port. The
last version of the driver software was release 2.3, which contained both a
volumes manager app and the appropriately patched System 3.2/Finder 5.3 files.
If you have any experience with this beast, I could use some help.

I originally got my hands on this drive in conjunction with a 512k unenhanced
Mac which I setup for my nine-year-old daughter. Two weeks ago, I obtained a
1MB MacPlus at a giveaway price, and was delighted to find that the drive
worked on the Plus. Never one to let sleeping dogs lie, however, I wanted to
upgrade the system software to some version of 6. Tecmar tech support
graciously supplied me with a ResEdit procedure to transfer the various
required resources to the newer system files. Unfortunately, while the
procedure does work, it is extremely buggy. Even more unfortunately, when I
tried to reinitialize the drive with the older software which had run perfectly
an hour before, it won't run correctly either. 

The problem in both cases seems to follow a pattern. As I'm trying to load
files to the drive, I get a message like "file xxxx could not be copied and was
skipped". The system then hangs and most be cold started. After such an
error, the hard disk just seems to collapse: bad block errors, files corrupted
errors, and finally refusal to mount the volume at all.

Obviously, I should have paid more attention to RULE #1 (if its not broke,
don't fix it), but now I'm stuck. Tecmar has been courteous but not helpful
(which is certainly understandable - this product died *years* ago). So I turn
to the ultimate court of appeal. Anybody have any idea what's going on here and
how I can fix it? I just can't afford a new SCSI drive so my daughter can use
MacPaint etc. E-mail addresses below - thanks for any help in advance.

 My wife AND my employer ignore my opinions - feel free to do the same!
........................................................................
. John Norman Sims, Jr.  /  BITNET: JNSIMS01@ULKYVM or JNSIMS01@ULKYVX .
. Univ. of Louisville / Computing & Telecommunications / (502)588-5565 .
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 You can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the game