schang@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Shu-Ping Chang) (07/31/90)
Dear Netter:
I need some advices about my Macintosh IIcx's 40M HD. It's about 3 days
ago (July 28) when I turned on my Mac. The Hard disk had no reponse.
I tried to reboot it again but no use. I thought my HD was crashed.
So I called apple to find out where I could have my MAC repaired.
I almost had a heart attack when I thought that I will lose all my valuable
files.
Last night when I planed to pack my MAC, I boot it up again and IT WORKS.
I then use HD SC setup utility to run a test of my HD. It passed the test
OK.
The advices I need is that what should I do now?
Is this situation normal? Has anyone out there experience things like this?
Does this mean that there is still some problem of my HD and I should
have someone take a look? However if this is the case what is the problem
now?
Any information is heartly appreciated. Please e-mail to my address.
Thanks again.
Shu-Ping Chang (schang@cs.umn.edu)roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) (08/01/90)
schang@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Shu-Ping Chang) writes: > I almost had a heart attack when I thought that I will lose all my valuable > files. Last night when I planed to pack my MAC, I boot it up again and IT > WORKS. I then use HD SC setup utility to run a test of my HD. It passed > the test OK. The advices I need is that what should I do now? In general (this applies equally well to punch cards, 2 GByte IPI hard disks, and everything in-between) when faced with storage media which appeared to be lost and then came back to life, the first thing to do is make a copy of whatever was on the media. Do it NOW! Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. You may not get another chance. The files you save may be your own. Repeat after me: files are worth more than the media they are stored on. Make this your manta. Chant it whenever you have media problems, especially if you are thinking along the lines of "well, maybe I'll let it run for a day and see what happens". Either that, or make sure you have a good cardiologist on call. Once you have recovered whatever files are worth recovering, then decide what to do with the media. If it's cheap (i.e. a floppy disk or reel of tape), throw it away. Destroy it first, so nobody will find it and use it by accident. If it's expensive (like a hard disk), then you have to think about having it checked out, and/or fixed. It may not be worth fixing an obsolete drive; for what it costs to have an old 20 megger fixed you might be able to buy a new 40, which is faster into the bargain. The definition of "obsolete" is context dependant; in my case, I have a Fuji M2351 Eagle with a suspected bad HDA that fits into that category. If it's an Apple HD-40, you may be able to get it fixed for free under their warranty extention, but you'll have to check with your dealer about that. -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy "Arcane? Did you say arcane? It wouldn't be Unix if it wasn't arcane!"