Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!uhccux!friedman
From: friedman@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Daniel Friedman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Repair policy for intermittent boot problem
Message-ID: <4592@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Date: 20 Aug 89 22:41:47 GMT
References: <2745@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu>
Reply-To: friedman@uhccux.UUCP (Daniel Friedman)
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Hawaii
Lines: 28

In article <2745@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> sdd@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu writes:
>Several previous articles have discussed booting problems in which the hard
>disk was intermittently inaccessible.  I experienced this problem once at home
>on my two-month old IIcx.  Then I took the machine with me on a two week
>vacation during which time booting almost always required 2 to 5 minutes of
>doing restarts, powering the machine on/off, etc.  Once the machine booted up
>it ran fine.  Now, I've come back home, ready to take the Mac to the shop
>before the warranty expires, and (you guessed it) it has booted flawlessly
>ever since.
>              ... stuff deleted ...

   This sounds like a problem I had two years ago with the Apple 20 Mb
drive in my Mac II. The problem turned out to be a buggy EPROM in the
drive controller, and the fix was to claim Apple's (free) EPROM upgrade.

Warning: boring story about Apple dealership incompetence follows.

   As an aside, the way I found out about the EPROM problem/fix was that
the technician in the campus bookstore from which I had bought the computer
managed to find a message on AppleLink about it. He then ordered the
replacement EPROM, and, fortunately, also printed out a copy of the
message and gave it to me. I took a job elsewhere before that EPROM
ever arrived, so I had to go to an Apple dealership near my new residence
to get the repair done. I told them exactly what the problem was, what
the fix was, and to look it up on AppleLink. This left them "baffled".
Finally I dug up the copy of the AppleLink message that the campus bookstore
technician had given me, and the bozos finally did the repair. If I hadn't
had that printout, I would never have been able to get my Mac fixed.