Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!amdahl!oliveb!felix!kehr
From: kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: CMS Drives
Message-ID: <70237@felix.UUCP>
Date: 17 Nov 88 16:47:57 GMT
References: <3211@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> <986@ccnysci.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@felix.UUCP
Reply-To: kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr)
Organization: FileNet Corp., Costa Mesa, CA
Lines: 53

In article <986@ccnysci.UUCP> alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) writes:
<In article <3211@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> ccm022@deneb.ucdavis.edu writes:
<>
<> Do CMS drives have problems with the Mac System or just certain versions
<>I want to buy a CMS internal hd 30 for my SE but I've seen a lot of bitching
<>about the CMS and System Software.  Do I buy CMS and use only certain sys
<>versions or forget CMS all together?
<>		Leme Know, Mark Malone.
<
<You have not "seen a lot of bitching about the CMS and System Software." There
<was some, concerning only the 80 MB models, only with system 6.0, only with
<old versions of the formatter & installer. None of the other models have had
<any problems (to the best of my knowledge. I use a lot of CMS stuff, so I guess
<I should know fairly well).
<
<CMS drives are good reliable equipement. Not flashy, but very solid and very
<cheap.
<
<Alexis Rosen                       alexis@dasys1.UUCP  or  alexis@ccnysci.UUCP

On the other hand, we're having problems every week getting the drives to
boot. Just yesterday it happened on an SE that has been running System 5.
At this point the toll is

   2 60 MByte internals in Mac II's on System 6.0 had to be reformatted to
   boot. Mine was completely reformatted with Apple software instead of
   CMS and I have had no problems for nearly a week now.

   2 SEs with 20 or 30 Mbyte drives - one had to go back for repair (takes
   at least a week) and the other just started acting up yesterday. One
   clearing of parameter RAM did it. (I had to stop typing to hunt the
   system diskette for the same machine just now, but by the time he
   waited several minutes to see if it would boot, then came to borrow my
   diskette, it did finally boot by itself.)

   One 102 Mbyte disk had to go back for repairs.

   All of these drives are less than a year old. I'm fairly convinced its
   not the hardware. After my 60 Mbyte worked flawlessly for five months
   and then started having problems only when I upgraded from 6.0 to 6.0.2,
   I can't blame the drive itself. After a week of zapping PRAM to get it
   to boot or even show up, it finally seemed to bite the dust completely.

   Reformatting it with Apple software seemed to be the magical cure. No
   problems all week.

   Personally, I would not buy a CMS drive unless I could get it reformatted
   similarly. On the other hand, I've used the same Seagate drive at home
   for over a year, but it is in an external box. I bought it from the
   place that upgraded my 512 to 2 Mbytes and don't even know what kind of
   software formatted it.

   Shirley Kehr