ws7m@ws7m.UUCP (Mark R. Holbrook) (11/13/90)
Arrrrgh! Yet another initialization failure... Has anybody experienced problems with the super drives and formatting floppies? I have also had trouble with floppies just "going bad..." Today I watched my client try to format 3 BRAND NEW Kodak HD floppies in his 4 month old IIcx and each one was ejected with initialization or format failed messages... My IIci is just less than a year old and it has many of the same problems. Do these drives just need regular alignment? Email me if you have any wonderful insights! Or... if you would just like to bitch about your own superdrive problems... Mark... ws7m!ws7m@hub.ucsb.edu
c60a-cz@danube.Berkeley.EDU (Donald Burr) (11/13/90)
In article <32@ws7m.UUCP> ws7m@ws7m.UUCP (Mark R. Holbrook) writes: >Arrrrgh! Yet another initialization failure... Has anybody experienced >problems with the super drives and formatting floppies? I have also had >trouble with floppies just "going bad..." Today I watched my client try >to format 3 BRAND NEW Kodak HD floppies in his 4 month old IIcx and each >one was ejected with initialization or format failed messages... > >My IIci is just less than a year old and it has many of the same problems. > >Do these drives just need regular alignment? > >Email me if you have any wonderful insights! Or... if you would just >like to bitch about your own superdrive problems... I dunno... I've had mine for 2 months or so, and everything's working fine. It'll format both 400/800k and 1.4M floppies, both brand-spanking new and ancient REALLY OLD ones (the ones with about 7-8 disk labels piled up on top of each other, scratching-out and rewriting of disk titles, etc.) It could be that your drives need to be cleaned. Try getting a disk cleaning kit and using it, and find out what happens. ______________________________________________________________________________ Donald Burr, c60a-cz@danube.Berkeley.edu | "I have a seperate mail-address University of California, Berkeley | for flames and other such nega- Majoring in Computer Science | tive msgs; it's called /dev/null."
ftdkl@acad3.fai.alaska.edu (LaSota Daniel K) (11/14/90)
In article <8836@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, c60a-cz@danube.Berkeley.EDU (Donald Burr) writes... >In article <32@ws7m.UUCP> ws7m@ws7m.UUCP (Mark R. Holbrook) writes: >>Arrrrgh! Yet another initialization failure... Has anybody experienced >>problems with the super drives and formatting floppies? I have also had >>trouble with floppies just "going bad..." Today I watched my client try >>to format 3 BRAND NEW Kodak HD floppies in his 4 month old IIcx and each >>one was ejected with initialization or format failed messages... >> >>My IIci is just less than a year old and it has many of the same problems. >> >>Do these drives just need regular alignment? >> >>Email me if you have any wonderful insights! Or... if you would just >>like to bitch about your own superdrive problems... > > Yes I have had these problems too. At this time I can only trust data on floppies for sneakerNet transfers. I suspect my drive because a disk will often fail on my ci at home but will format or be read perfectly on another Mac at work. Dan LaSota ftdkl@acad3.fai.alaska.edu
Gavin_Eadie@UM.CC.UMich.EDU (Gavin Eadie) (11/14/90)
In article <1990Nov13.225202.13399@hayes.ims.alaska.edu> ftdkl@acad3.fai.alaska.edu (LaSota Daniel K) writes: > >>Email me if you have any wonderful insights! Or... if you would just > >>like to bitch about your own superdrive problems... Well, I just had my IIci superdrive replaced with a new one -- the old one got worse and worse till it wasn't usable at all. The tech who did the repair said that he'd seen several IIci's from the early batches with floppy drive problems. I seem to remember others reporting problems about this in the past - does anyone know if Apple acknowledged any problems with early IIci floppy drive quality control? --------- Gavin_Eadie@UM.CC.UMich.EDU University of Michigan Information Systems
erd@duke.cs.duke.edu (Ed Darken) (11/14/90)
I spent yesterday afternoon formatting high density disks on a Mac IIci (geez, it's SLOW), and I encountered a surprising number of initialization failures. What's interesting is that each time I immediately re-inserted the same disk and retried the initialization, and it succeeded! Every time! Hmmm...
robs@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Rob Schaeffer) (11/14/90)
I have a super drive and I've suddenly had a LOT of formatting problems. So I go to another drive, same problems. So I go to another disk, and yet another drive, and then another brand of disk, then I try regular drives. In short it is almost impossable to format a disk around here. No idea why. High density seems to always work. Could this be a new virus that screws up low density formatting? -- robs@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu "My God, it's full of toasters..."
clarson@ux.acs.umn.edu (Chaz Larson) (11/15/90)
In article <1990Nov14.150505.21014@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> robs@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Rob Schaeffer) writes: |I have a super drive and I've suddenly had a LOT of formatting |problems. I've been experiencing another wierd one. Pick up a DS/DD disk and take a look at the back [hub] side. Notice that right where the HD-identifier hole would be there is a small depression [I'm looking at a Sony disk right now, and it's a little rectangular depression with "M06" in it]. On my IIci, this little dent is apparently deep enough to make the drive think that it has recieved an HD disk. Stick the 800K floppy in, and the IIci reports that it "is formatted incorrectly for this drive." Cover the micro-depression with a Post-It Note, and it comes up as the 800K disk it really is. Geez. The way I understand it, many PC's use an optical system for sensing whether or not that little hole is present. Why in the world did Apple use a mechanical system? chaz -- Someone please release me from this trance. clarson@ux.acs.umn.edu AOL:Crowbone
tj@kona.cs.ucla.edu (Tom Johnson) (11/15/90)
In article <1990Nov14.144505.3916@terminator.cc.umich.edu> Gavin_Eadie@UM.CC.UMich.EDU (Gavin Eadie) writes: >In article <1990Nov13.225202.13399@hayes.ims.alaska.edu> >ftdkl@acad3.fai.alaska.edu (LaSota Daniel K) writes: >> >>Email me if you have any wonderful insights! Or... if you would just >> >>like to bitch about your own superdrive problems... > >Well, I just had my IIci superdrive replaced with a new one -- the old one >got worse and worse till it wasn't usable at all. The tech who did the >repair said that he'd seen several IIci's from the early batches with >floppy drive problems. I seem to remember others reporting problems about >this in the past - does anyone know if Apple acknowledged any problems >with early IIci floppy drive quality control? We have had a number of problems with SuperDrives, not just in Mac IIci's but also in SE/30s, IIcx's, IIx's, etc. etc. etc.... I've now reached the point where I don't trust the damned things any more. I've decided that whenever I save up enough money to buy a computer for home, I'm gonna rip out the FDHD, sell it, and replace it with an 800K drive. We consistently have disks that read in one drive and not another. Disks which won't format in one machine but format fine in another and work on everything. The campus computer store claims that they have had to replace every SuperDrive they have had out in their display machines--they just seem to be MUCH more fragile than the 800K drives. Tom -- Tom Johnson UCLA Computer Science Department 3413 Boelter Hall, Los Angeles CA 90024 (213)825-2145 Internet: tj@cs.ucla.edu
JAHAYES@MIAMIU.BITNET (Josh Hayes) (11/15/90)
I'll stir the pot a little, here....it's my understanding that early FDHDs (like, over a year old) were a bit flakey. More recent drives are supposedly better -- this I hear from three separate techs at three separate shops (one of whom is my wife, so I'm a little biased :-) ). The secretary in our office has a cx with a flakey drive, about a year and a half old, and we fixed it by replacing the drive about a month ago. Since then, no problems at all....for what it's worth.... --------- Josh Hayes, Zoology Department, Miami University, Oxford OH 45056 voice: 513-529-1679 fax: 513-529-6900 jahayes@miamiu.bitnet, or jahayes@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu "I am the Supreme Being, you know; I'm not completely dim."
john@newave.UUCP (John A. Weeks III) (11/18/90)
In article <32@ws7m.UUCP> ws7m@ws7m.UUCP (Mark R. Holbrook) writes: > Today I watched my client try to format 3 BRAND NEW Kodak HD floppies > in his 4 month old IIcx and each one was ejected with initialization > or format failed messages... I have had a fair number of Kodak disks refuse to format in both HD and DD media. I have also had the shutter fall off of the disk while in the drive...not a fun thing to try to fix. I have much better luck with Maxell and Sony disks. -john- -- =============================================================================== John A. Weeks III (612) 942-6969 john@newave.mn.org NeWave Communications ...uunet!rosevax!bungia!wd0gol!newave!john ===============================================================================
tom@wcc.oz (Tom Evans) (11/20/90)
I remember THE article from month ago when someone posted that he had FOUND THE PROBLEM AND FIXED IT. I didn't keepa copy, so from memory... The Fan draws dirty air in the floppy slot and dumps it on the heads. FDHD drives seem more sensitive to this than the 800k ones. Solution 1 - clean the heads. Solution 2 - (after solution 1) tape a paper or cloth flap over the floppy slot to keep the dirt out. Don't blame me - would you trust your memory after 6 months? Tom Evans