Path: utzoo!censor!geac!jtsv16!uunet!jarthur!petunia!news From: jdudeck@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John R. Dudeck) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: PC BRAND Mail Order experience Message-ID: <261ab3c2.71f1@petunia.CalPoly.EDU> Date: 5 Apr 90 02:56:02 GMT References: <4041@nmtsun.nmt.edu> Distribution: usa Organization: Cal Poly State Univ,CSC Dept,San Luis Obispo,CA 93407 Lines: 40 In article <4041@nmtsun.nmt.edu> nigel@nmtsun.nmt.edu (Nigel Sharples) writes: [deleted story of multiple interactions with dealer over floppy drives] > I went through two boxes of high density disks - Sony and TDK. Out of > these 20 disks, only 4 managed to format without bad sectors. Most > had around 9k of bad sectors. The bad sectors always occur at about > the same location on the disk, you can hear the drive marking off the > sectors when it's about 95% - 99% complete. Sure sounds like a floppy > drive problem, right? But each drive had exactly the same symptoms!! > So is the problem more likely to be the controller? I tried these > same disks in a different machine, they formatted just fine. > >Based on this experience, I would recommend that everyone stay well away >from PC Brand. It's too bad that these kinds of experiences are so common. The problem you describe almost certainly was not due to any hardware or software failures at all, but rather to incorrect configuration of the floppy drive. The floppy drive is not sensing the high density hole on the diskettes, and the software is trying to format the diskettes for 1.44 meg, when electrically the drive is set for double density 720k diskettes. There is a jumper on most 3.5" drives which determines whether the drive senses the diskette type or not, and most likely in each case the drive was set wrong. Maybe the guys at PC- Brand are testing with 720k dikettes, and are not noticing the problem...or maybe they are not testing at all... Anyway, the problem could have been resolved without having to send the system back and forth, if only the right information had been provided at the right time. In general it is better not to ask your dealer for support. Just bring them into the picture when what they sold you is beyond hope, when you need to get them to replace it. Save youself the grief and just find a helpful PC guru over the net to tell you what to do :^) -- John Dudeck "You want to read the code closely..." jdudeck@Polyslo.CalPoly.Edu -- C. Staley, in OS course, teaching ESL: 62013975 Tel: 805-545-9549 Tanenbaum's MINIX operating system.