Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!sharkey!teemc!mibte!gamma!thumper!pff From: pff@thumper.bellcore.com (Peter Ferris) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Jasmine & Rodime Drive Failures Keywords: Has this happened to you? Sudden hair loss, insanity, etc. Message-ID: <1592@thumper.bellcore.com> Date: 7 Jun 89 02:24:13 GMT Organization: Bell Communications Research Lines: 76 Greetings, Today, another 140MB internal HD crashed. That makes for a total of three such drives in the past two weeks. Two of the drives are mfg'd by Rodime for Jasmine, the third drive is a Rodime direct sell. The two Jasmine drive serial #s are: D000280 and the other is D000285. Coincidence? Hmm. Call Jasmine you say? I've tried. And tried. And tried. Typical scenario: 1) Call Jasmine. 2) Listen to automatic answering dealy - enter code for tech support. 3) Hear the msg telling me all lines are busy, and "don't worry, be happy!" my call will be answered in the order it was rcd, etc. You know the drill... 4) Stay on hold for in excess of 45 minutes w/o speaker phone. 5) Click! AHA! A live human bean! "Customer Service Operator, all lines are busy, may I take a message?". GEEEeeeezzz! These people have more nerve than a toothache. Yes, I'll leave a scathing message, thank you! This has gone on for two days now. Meanwhile, Rodime promises to call back real soon now. I haven't pursued them as vigorously. To be fair: From month #1 that Jasmine started business, I've had good luck with their drives. That is to say, though, I've never needed tech support before. If this is "typical", I'd like to know about it before I buy another Jasmine product. Any thoughts on this? Good and bad experiences welcome - mention mfgr and "flavor" of experience with them - outstanding, good, fair, wretched, etc. While none of the drives were in machine, they were in my company's machines, which I must repair. Note: I have an external Jasmine 140MB - works great (so far!). Also, it seems to me that recently I read a little tidbit in MacUser or MacWorld (or was it MacWeek or ...?!) that some former Jasmine employees had brought suit against Jasmine - charging that Jasmine had knowingly sold defective drives, etc. Not that I suspect that I have any of the same drives (but then again...), but it's revealing of their character, if true. Did anyone else read this? Remember where? Have you heard any outcome of the suit? I suspect it'll be "settled out of court". Most importantly, I wanted to make others aware that there may be a problem here. If you have a failed internal Jasmine drive, what was your experience in dealing w/ Jasmine? Do you have the serial # handy? Is it "close" to the two drives listed above? I can't really list the serial number of the third Rodime drive in that it doesn't use the same "syntax" as Jasmine does. The SMALL bar code tag says: IDS-0140-02 {Model type?} IFT890207020 {Serial# - incl. date of mfgr??} Any comments on this issue would be appreciated. For fastest response from me, e-mail would be preferred, though I do check the net fairly often. --- ALSO: there is a Seagate 40MB internal hd failure for many drives shipped with Apple Mac II's, and possibly other models, the serial number range for the defective Seagates is: 335507 to 1023016 (wowwee! Hope those weren't increments of "1" at a time, Seagate!!). We have one of these drives where I work, and another (unknown) quantity of them (at least one!) at another Bellcore location. As far as I know, these are exclusively 40MB drives. There a "field fix" for these drives. Apple is kindly replacing the drives that fall into the range (I believe whether they've failed or not, but don't quote me on that!). E-mail me if you have Seagate 40MB drive in this range, I'll tell you the "fix" and/or phone number for Apple - how to replace, etc. --- BTW: NONE of the owners of ANY of the failed drives had any form of back up! It's been a fun two weeks for Mac service at Bellcore... Thanks for your help & sympathy! -Pete Ferris pff@thumper.bellcore.com