Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!gatech!prism!russ
From: russ@prism.gatech.EDU (Russell Shackelford)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: 251 Wierdness (summary)
Keywords: who's in charge at Seagate anyway?
Message-ID: <962@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Date: 10 Jul 89 19:52:51 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Lines: 38

couple of weeks ago, i got on the net and whined for help about my
ST-251 working just fine BUT not booting the machine like it should.

responses indicated that there's LOTS of unhappy st-251 owners in this
world.

various people suggested the following causes of the problem:

1) motor not spinning up to speed
2) an unspecified "bad chip" that various folks have had replaced at
   prices ranging from $75 to $125.
3) stuck "park" mechanism
4) bad cables (not applicable in my situation; i checked and swapped)
5) bad power supply and/or connectors (not applicable either, to me)

i do NOT know what the truth is in my situation.  i did determine that
the resisistor pack had not been removed from the second HD, so i fixed
that and have had no problems since.  BUT the machine has not been used
much since, as I have upgraded to a 386 (see recent New Emergency posting).

when time allows, i will put the old machine thru its paces to see if it
is truly ok now or whether the problem persists, as i want to know the
truth before i sell the thing and perhaps leave some unfortunate soul
with a frustrating problem.

PS: does Seagate have anything to say about this?  Do they care?
Do they issue tech/service updates?  Does it matter to them that
myself and others are now very leary of their products? Does anybody
know?

thanks to all that replied; i wish i had more definitive results to post.


-- 
Russell Shackelford
School of Information and Computer Science
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332
russ@prism.gatech.edu         (404) 834-4759