Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!sharkey!mcf!mibte!gamma!thumper!pff
From: pff@thumper.bellcore.com (Peter Ferris)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: More on Jasmine Drives
Keywords: Jasmine, HD Failures, HD MFGR Failures
Message-ID: <1642@thumper.bellcore.com>
Date: 17 Jul 89 15:38:18 GMT
Reply-To: pff@thumper.UUCP (Peter Ferris)
Organization: Bellcore MRE
Lines: 58

Greetings Chuq, et al;

It's been over a month since I sent both of the defective Jasmine 140
InnerDrives back for repair. So far, I haven't heard a word. I did learn a 
valuable lesson though. From now on I encourage all buyers of Mac hardware in 
my area to specify Apple drives.  I realize these are not necessarily perfect 
nor OEM'd by Apple, but when I recently called Apple about about a defective 
Seagate drive, it was replaced immediately - I had the replacement installed 
within 48 hours after calling Apple. Apple cares, Apple listens.  
Sorry Jasmine, NEVER again.  

Ya know, I used to recommend Jasmine.  A friend runs a BBS in Tulsa and has
had at least one (and I believe 2) Jasmine drives (when Jasmine first hit the 
HD market) running non-stop, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for a few years now.
I received a bit of e-mail from Internet folks on the subject.  Frankly, MOST 
of the storys were the "I had a similiar experience when...".  Some people said
that they liked their Jasmine drives and / or service, but of those, more than 
half said admittedly they hadn't needed service RECENTLY (in the past year). 
Another factor in my recommending Jasmine was that they offered a large chunk 
of real estate - 140MB drive when for awhile 80MB was the most Apple offered.  
Now Apple offers a 160MB drive.  The two that I have personal experience with
seem to work like a champ!

It seems to me as if Jasmine's sales has blossomed far ahead of it's service,
a common but unfortunate management error in high tech items. Upper management
must consist of more salesmen and bean counters then techs. 

BTW: Jasmine did send a loaner drive, ransomed against my corporate Amex card.
They felt that one (1) external 20MB drive was a fair loaner for two internal 
140's.  Not to worry - they didn't send any SCSI cabling or power cable either.
In keeping with my current experiences with Jasmine, the loaner drive failed 
within a week. Bravo. The problems of all failed drives seems to be the same - 
failure to SCSI ID (mount).  The failed drives were used in different Macs, in
different environments, by users with very different levels of Mac expertise.

To put this in some sort of perspective: I've been using Macs heavily since
the Lisa (eh?!). While I'm no software guru, I know my way around, and I am 
fairly familar with the hardware aspect of things.  Formal education aside, 
I'm an Apple certified tech.  I'm not bragging, just establishing my competence
in working with the stuff - lest anyone think - gee, maybe this guy is hooking 
it up wrong..., etc.  Possible, but very unprobable!

Needless to say, I could go on (as could you, Chuq!) about my unpleasant 
experiences with Jasmine.  As each day passes and the users are replacing 
their Jasmine drives with Apple product, Jasmine will have a harder time
extracating themselves from the damage they've done to my users, and the 
sour taste left in my mouth.

Good luck to all users of Jasmine drives - may you never need service.

Best Regards,

Pete Ferris
Bell Communications Research
pff@thumper.bellcore.com

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