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From: cash@zug.csmil.umich.edu (Howard Cash)
Subject: IIci - Disk incompatibility
Message-ID: <1989Nov12.205347.300@csmil.umich.edu>
Summary: Some drives fail on IIci; Beware Microtech!!
Keywords: IIci Microtech Nova
Sender: news@terminator.cc.umich.edu
Reply-To: cash@csmil.umich.edu (Howard Cash)
Organization: The Cognitive Science and Machine Intelligence Laboratory
References: <2845@skivs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12 Nov 89 20:53:47 GMT

If you are considering upgrading your Mac to a IIci you may be in for
a surprise with your external hard drive.  Certain manufacturers
did not exactly follow Apple's scsi guidelines and now they are being
bitten.

According to someone I spoke to at Apple DTS, at least three disk drive
manufacturers have made disks that will not automount on the IIci.  There
may be others.  The same source at Developer Technical Support says that 
all of the manufacturers with this problem have acknowledged their errors
in this regard and will upgrade their hardware for affected customers.

ALL EXCEPT MICROTECH INTERNATIONAL, makers of Nova hard drives.  I bought
a $1500.00, 120MB hard drive from microtech about a year ago.  The first
drive I received was defective - (the dip-switches on the back could not
be used to set the SCSI address).  After a great deal of inconvenience they
replaced it with a drive that looked as if it had been dropped.  When that
one finally failed and they replaced IT, I thought I finally had a working 
drive.  Unfortunately, I cannot use it with my IIci.  After several hours
on the phone with Microtech service people and managers, I was told that 
my best bet was to "sell it for what I can and buy a new drive."  One manager
defended this suggestion on the grounds that "Microtech cannot be responsible
for maintaining compatibility with changing technologies."  She went on to
point out that they were legally safe because that limitation is written into
their warrantee. 

If you want to avoid similar problems, I highly discourage anyone from buying
microtech products.  I have not done benchmarks and cannot make reliable 
reports on the speed of their drives, but their service is inexcusable.

These are my own oppinions but details and names of people I talked to are
available to those who may be affected.

-Howard Cash
 cash@csmil.umich.edu