Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!gatech!bloom-beacon!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU!SPARKS
From: SPARKS@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: RE: Laser 128 800K drive
Message-ID: <8802161850.aa08336@SMOKE.BRL.ARPA>
Date: 16 Feb 88 23:51:00 GMT
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 27


   I was in the market for a 3.5 800k drive for a GS too, and I had
narrowed it down to Apple's or Central Point Software's.  I asked around,
and the feeling was that Apple's drive is the only way to go.  It seems
that the Laser drive is not 100% compatible and won't run everything that
will on the Apple 3.5.  
   The difference in price was about $200, so I swallowed hard and dug
out my wallet.  The Apple 3.5 drive has worked without a hitch.  Well,
actually there was one problem with set-up that I'll share - it might
save someone a lot of headaches!

   The GS came with a 5.25 smart drive, and we had a old 5.25 with 
controller card, so the cont. card went in 5, and the new drive went in
the smart port - fine.  Then I configured the slots so that 5 would be
setup as "your (my) - card" - fine.  Later, when we daisy chained the
3.5 drive, it wouldn't recognize the 800k drive at all, and skipped over
it (flickering the light briefly) whenever we tried to access it.
   After much headache, it turned out that the solution was to identify
the controller card in slot 5 as "smartport."  Don't ask me why, but it
worked!

   A note concerning the above: I was troubleshooting this over the phone
with no access to documentation, so it is quite possible this was covered
in one of the GS manuals.

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Mike Yellin - Bitnet:Sparks@Drycas, Arpa: MY0L@Andrew.cmu.edu