Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpl-opus!hpnmdla!dan
From: dan@hpnmdla.HP.COM (Dan Pleasant)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: A Miraculous Recovery
Message-ID: <7500004@hpnmdla.HP.COM>
Date: 23 Jul 90 21:07:01 GMT
References: <40908@think.Think.COM>
Organization: HP Network Measurements Div, Santa Rosa, CA
Lines: 43


>A few weeks ago, I was complaining to anyone who would listen that the
>internal disk in my shiny new IIfx was useless.  If any external SCSI
>devices were connected, even in a 100% kosher configuration, the
>internal drive had intermittent read and write errors.  My Apple
>dealer was here twice to fix it, without any success.  Use of
>different terminators, filters, cables, and disks had no effect. 
>
>Last Friday, I fixed(?) the problem by accident by adding *another*
>external drive and making the external bus longer. The failing
>configuration included an Apple CD-SC, with or without a CDC Wren III
>disk.  Adding another Wren III, for a total of three external devices,
>seems to have cleared the problem completely.
>
>When failing, the internal drive would report write errors every
>couple of megabytes as I copied files onto it.  Attempts to run
>"successfully" copied applications from the internal disk usually
>ended in disaster.  After adding the new external disk, I copied about
>60 megabytes of files onto the internal without any problems at all. I
>fired up SpInside Mac from the internal and it ran beautifully. 
>
>Can somebody explain this please?
>--
>Ephraim Vishniac    ephraim@think.com   ThinkingCorp@applelink.apple.com
> Thinking Machines Corporation / 245 First Street / Cambridge, MA 02142
>        One of the flaws in the anarchic bopper society was
>        the ease with which such crazed rumors could spread.
----------

Sure.  You obviously displeased the SCSI gods, whose wrath is measured in
hours of lost time and lost hair.  You apparently found a solution quite
by accident, using the time-honored solution of throwing money at the
problem. :-)

If it makes you feel any better, you're not alone.  My IIfx has 4 external
SCSI devices, one of which is the Apple CD-ROM device.  When the CD-ROM
drive was the third external device it would refuse to mount disks.  I
changed the cables so now it's the first device, and it works.  So does
everything else (for now!).

But I always remember to bow to Cupertino every day at dawn....

Dan Pleasant