perez@andromeda.rutgers.edu.rutgers.edu (William Perez) (03/05/90)
Hi, I'm taking a survey for personal information... 3 months ago, I purchased an SE/30 with an FDHD drive (reads High Density disks-those with the HD letters near the shutter). Since then, I've heard MANY complaints about the drive. Most common is having disks fail and never format again. I can attest to that. In the past 2 months, I've lost approximately 40 Double Density disks and 4 High Density disks. Most of them "no name" brand, some bulk Sony, and one or two Maxell disks. So my questions are: 1. If you've had trouble with your FDHD drive, please describe: 2. Have you taken any steps to solution this problem? If so, briefly describe and did it help any? 3. If you lost disks, describe what brands were lost and approximately how many. Is there a brand that has lasted you longer than any other? Please remember to describe whether you are refferring to DD or HD disks. Do you use the same disk very often, different disks, or hardly use disks? 4. List: Mac model, how long you've had it, how many FDHD drives are on it, version of system software you are using, and any information you think might be relevant. I'm trying to see if the problem is the drives themselves, the quality of the disks, or the software being used. Please email your reply to me. I hope to see an outstanding solution I can pass on or whether we should talk to Apple about this. Thank you for your time. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> <>William Perez <> Internet: perez@andromeda.rutgers.edu <> <>RPO 0043 POBox 5063 <> GEnie: W.PEREZ1 <> <>New Brunswick, NJ 08903 <> America Online: WilliWonka <> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
magik@chinet.chi.il.us (Ben Liberman) (03/06/90)
In article <Mar.4.20.01.43.1990.15845@galaxy.rutgers.edu> perez@andromeda.rutgers.edu.rutgers.edu (William Perez) writes: > >3 months ago, I purchased an SE/30 with an FDHD drive (reads High Density >disks-those with the HD letters near the shutter). Since then, I've >heard MANY complaints about the drive. Most common is having disks >fail and never format again. > I bought an SE/30 in Jan. of 1989 and started having problems with the FDHD and Sony disks. After having 2 HD and 4 DD disks fail, I went out and bought a head cleaning disk at my local EggHead computer store. I now clean my drive every few months and haven't had a single DD failure since. (your milage may vary ;-) I'm still using only Sony disks (just my personal prejudice ;-) I have not had the occation to use HD disks since the problem went away. -- ------------ ------------ ---------------------- Ben Liberman USENET magik@chinet.chi.il.us GEnie,Delphi MAGIK
thewho@portia.Stanford.EDU (Derek Fong) (03/06/90)
In article <1990Mar6.071312.25729@chinet.chi.il.us> magik@chinet.chi.il.us (Ben Liberman) writes: >In article <Mar.4.20.01.43.1990.15845@galaxy.rutgers.edu> perez@andromeda.rutgers.edu.rutgers.edu (William Perez) writes: >> >>3 months ago, I purchased an SE/30 with an FDHD drive (reads High Density >>disks-those with the HD letters near the shutter). Since then, I've >>heard MANY complaints about the drive. Most common is having disks >>fail and never format again. >> >I bought an SE/30 in Jan. of 1989 and started having problems with the FDHD >and Sony disks. After having 2 HD and 4 DD disks fail, I went out and bought >a head cleaning disk at my local EggHead computer store. I now clean my >drive every few months and haven't had a single DD failure since. >(your milage may vary ;-) Hooray, another "first batch" SE/30 user! What does this cleaning disk you have do? Do you need to use a fluid with it or what? I also, as my comment notes, have had an SE/30 since Jan 1989. I have had quite a few DD die on me (10/200 disks I've purchased). They are Verbatim's (not ranked as high as Sony's, but I got them really cheap). I had two HD's die on me (out of maybe 30-40). I resurrected one, by reformatting it on my friend's (gasp!) 386 PC. then reformatted it on mine. I remember one person once posted that he solved his bad floppy problem by zapping the bad disks with a giant Electomagnet in the Physics lab. In any case, I think it would be great if Apple would do something to correct the problem, although I do suspect that it is not an easy one to solve cons- dering the problems IBM had with their first High Density drives. ...In any case, I have another question to toss out in regards to the SE/30. I heard from an unidentifyable source that the system board for the SE/30 has changed 3 times since the first ones were shipped out in Jan 1989. Is there any validity to this claim? If so, were any drastic changes made? Oh well, I haven't had any problems yet with mine.... ----Derek Fong fong@cive.stanford.edu thewho@portia.stanford.edu
hairston@henry.ece.cmu.edu (David Hairston) (03/07/90)
[perez@andromeda.rutgers.edu (William Perez) writes:] [P]3 months ago, I purchased an SE/30 with an FDHD drive (reads High Density [P]disks-those with the HD letters near the shutter). Since then, I've [P]heard MANY complaints about the drive. Most common is having disks [P]fail and never format again. [magik@chinet.chi.il.us (Ben Liberman) writes:] [L]I bought an SE/30 in Jan. of 1989 and started having problems with the FDHD [L]and Sony disks. After having 2 HD and 4 DD disks fail, I went out and [L]bought a head cleaning disk at my local EggHead computer store. I now [L]clean my drive every few months and haven't had a single DD failure since. [L](your milage may vary ;-) i have a mac ii and the original 800k drives starting getting weird about a year ago. in sep. '89 i upgraded to 1.4M drives and at that time i was told that my 800k drives were covered with dust. i was also given a friendly warning that the 1.4M drives would be more sensitive to dust. so i put shutters on the drive slots and dust screens on the air intake slots to prevent dust buildup. 6 months later and over 100 1.4M floppies used, read a/o formatted since, i've had _no_ problems (3M disks mainly). by the way, the computer stays on all the time so the fan is constantly sucking in air. perhaps preventative maintainence is in order for mac ii owners. -dave- hairston@henry.ece.cmu.edu
stoms@castor.ncgia.ucsb.edu (David Stoms) (03/08/90)
After about a year my drives started rejecting most disks on an irregular basis. I finally relented and opened my Mac II up and examined the drives carefully. The mechanism that recieved the disk was sticking and the drive head was dust. Actually the whole thing was dusty. I don't recommend this, but I attacked it with damp q-tips. You have to be very careful that the q-tips don't fall apart. So after the drives looked clean I played with the insertion mechanism for a while. It kept not seating the disk all the way but after a few hours of working it something happened and it started seating disks perfectly. The change was rather surprising because it was so sudden. My drives have been work well ever since. Maybe I'll have to clean them again soon though.
levin@bbn.com (Joel B Levin) (03/08/90)
In article <4227@hub.UUCP> stoms@castor.ncgia.ucsb.edu (David Stoms) writes: |After about a year my drives started rejecting most disks on an |irregular basis. I finally relented and opened my Mac II up and examined |the drives carefully. The mechanism that recieved the disk was sticking... What does this have to do with _programming_ the Mac? Nothing. Please EDIT YOUR NEWSGROUPS and followup lines. Thanks / JBL = Nets: levin@bbn.com | "There were sweetheart roses on Yancey Wilmerding's or {...}!bbn!levin | bureau that morning. Wide-eyed and distraught, she POTS: (617)873-3463 | stood with all her faculties rooted to the floor."
derosa@cell.mot.COM (John DeRosa) (03/09/90)
stoms@castor.ncgia.ucsb.edu (David Stoms) writes: >....and the drive head was dust. Actually the whole thing was dusty. I don't >recommend this, but I attacked it with damp q-tips. You have to be very >careful that the q-tips don't fall apart....... whoa there...don't ever use q-tips and what are you using to ` dampen them with? Water??? God, forbid. Use foam "q-tips" and liquid freon (never water or alcohol). Get these from radio shack if you have no other source.
jlc@atux01.UUCP (J. Collymore) (03/09/90)
I recently bought a floppy drive cleaning kit (by Kodak). It consists of a floppy with a special material where the disk medium would normally be, and a small bottle of a special cleaning fluid. You put a few drops on the cleaning material, insert the disk, and when your Mac asks to initialize the disk, just say "yes." Your drive will thus be cleaned. They recommend doing this once for every 10 hours of drive use. The cleaning floppy is good for 8-12 uses, and then you should go out and buy another kit. These cleaning kits only cost about $5-8, so they're not going to break most of us financially. FOr the 5 minutes it takes me to go through this whole process, it's a lot cheaper and less time consuming then losing disks with data, opening up the Mac, or taking the Mac to the nearest authorized Apple dealer and paying as much as $85 for them to go in and fix or clean the drive. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" (Just like doing your daily hard disk backups!) Jim Collymore
usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) (03/12/90)
In article <110@atux01.UUCP> jlc@atux01.UUCP (J. Collymore) writes: >[deleted] >this once for every 10 hours of drive use. The cleaning floppy is good for >8-12 uses, and then you should go out and buy another kit. Ok, so cleaning your drive is a good idea. However I must point out that cleaning your drives is a lot like brushing your teeth with sandpaper. It really acheives the desired effect, but maybe you shouldn't do it every day. The MOST I've ever cleaned the drive heads on my own Mac is about twice in the last 4 years, and I've *never* had a problem due to dust and dirt. The university computer lab I work for has 18 SEs in a classroom enviroment, and we have had to clean the drives about 2 times in the last year (average, approximately). Seems like over-cleaning would wear down the heads eventually. Our rule of thumb is to NOT clean them unless it seems worthwhile. Again, someone will probably flame me for this, but it seems that drive-cleaner manufactures might want people to clean their drives as much as possible, but this seems like it would eventually be counter-productive. >[deleted] >"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" (Just like doing your daily >hard disk backups!) Most definitely good advice. But is ten-ounces of prevention when only one-ounce was required a really good idea? Flame away! Robert Cook.
derosa@cell.mot.COM (John DeRosa) (03/13/90)
jlc@atux01.UUCP (J. Collymore) writes: >I recently bought a floppy drive cleaning kit (by Kodak). It consists of >a floppy with a special material where the disk medium would normally be, and >a small bottle of a special cleaning fluid. You put a few drops on the I got a product similar to this called trackmate. It contained a bottle of "stuff" that had a felt tip to spead the liquid with. It also came with some software that would analyze the drive and recommend a cleaning procedure; none, short or long. The problem is that the "disk" would ALWAYS jam in the drive which would require disassembly of the Mac to get it out. Has anyone also had this problem? It has happened on several macs. Would the 800K init help this problem?
davide@cs.qmw.ac.uk (David Edmondson) (03/13/90)
In article <1587@diamond2.UUCP> derosa@cell.mot.COM (John DeRosa) writes: >I got a product similar to this called trackmate. It contained a bottle >of "stuff" that had a felt tip to spead the liquid with. It also > deleted >The problem is that the "disk" would ALWAYS jam in the drive which >would require disassembly of the Mac to get it out. Has anyone >also had this problem? It has happened on several macs. Would >the 800K init help this problem? I had this problem with a disk cleaner and found that it was due to the label they use to hold the case together. Scraping the label away from the indented section next to the ramp cutout fixed it. dave -- David Edmondson UUCP: davide@qmw-cs.uucp or ...seismo!mcvax!ukc!qmw-cs!davide ARPA: davide%cs.qmw@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Post: Dept of Computer Science JANET: davide@uk.ac.qmw.cs Queen Mary and Westfield College Applelink: UK0087 University of London Mile End Road London E1 4NS Voice: +44 1 975 5250 England
wiseman@tellab5.tellabs.com (Jeff Wiseman) (03/15/90)
In article <1587@diamond2.UUCP> derosa@cell.mot.COM (John DeRosa) writes: >The problem is that the "disk" would ALWAYS jam in the drive which >would require disassembly of the Mac to get it out. Has anyone >also had this problem? It has happened on several macs. Would Try it with system 6.04 or using the SafeEject init that came out in comp.binaries.mac a ways back. That might help. Just a guess tho. -- Jeff Wiseman: ....uunet!tellab5!wiseman OR wiseman@TELLABS.COM