Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-ses!hpcuhb!hpcilzb!mark
From: mark@hpcilzb.HP.COM (Mark Turner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: FDHD problem?
Message-ID: <870287@hpcilzb.HP.COM>
Date: 11 Jan 90 18:17:38 GMT
References: <341@cvbnet.Prime.COM>
Organization: HP Design Tech Center - Santa Clara, CA
Lines: 23

I've been having similar problems with my SE/30.  I think the
"superdrive" is a piece of shit.  I've blown away several very expensive
HD disks, and lost some important files doing it.  Yesterday it spewed
out what _had_ been a perfectly good 800k disk.  The usual message is:
"The file ...  could not be written and was skipped (disk error)."
Once this happens, you might as well throw the disk away, because you'll
never be able to format it again.  Even after I erased the disk with a
demagnetizer, it still wouldn't format.

The only good thing I can say about the "superdrive" is that it reads PC
disks okay.  In their zeal to appeal to the PC market, Apple's engineers
designed a drive that's more compatible with IBM than Macintosh.

I guess the solution is to buy an external 800k drive.  This works out
very well for Apple:  sell a shitty piece of hardware, then sell 'em
even more hardware to make up for the deficiencies.  (Another vital part
of this strategy is to provide only 90 days of warranty.  Most problems
don't appear until after the warranty expires.)

Thanks again, Apple.

Mark Turner
mark@hpcilzb.hp.com