Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!m2c!wpi!dseah
From: dseah@wpi.wpi.edu (David I Seah)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Disk drive troubles
Message-ID: <1285@wpi.wpi.edu>
Date: 11 Mar 89 23:58:38 GMT
References: <8903100757.aa24425@SMOKE.BRL.MIL>
Reply-To: dseah@wpi.wpi.edu (David I Seah)
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA. USA
Lines: 29

I "gave" my Apple IIe to my sister for college word processing.  She has
managed to destroy the monitor output (her boyfriend super-glued it back on.
argh) and now both disk drives.  One disk drive is an Applied Engineering
5.25" drive that is a couple of years old.  The other is a generic 5.25"
half-height based on the TEAC 55A mechanism (not quite, it's a Taiwan-made
mechanism).

I never had much success with the AE drive.  This is actually the third drive
that AE sent me in response to my complaints (no disk speed adjust, drive
trashed disks when it wrote).  After finding out that they wouldn't refund my
money, I just gave up and kept the drive for read/only purposes.  Rah rah
Applied Engineering.  The drive currently destroys anything that it touches. 
Try to boot a disk, and track 0 gets random crap written to it, totally
destroying any semblance of disk formatting.

The other drive is a generic thing my sister picked up in Taiwan.  It works on
occasion.  It was part of the last gasp of the Apple II Clone industry in
Taiwan.  The problem with this drive is that the disk drive head refuses to
step.  It just chatters in place when it is supposed to move.

I've tried replacing cables, checked cable connections inside the drive
(powered off!), and can't figure out what is wrong with them.  Could it be a
power supply problem?  Some of those old TEACs were really power-hungry.

My sister is beginning to eye my GS...help!  

| <<<<<(((((( DAVE SEAH ))))))>>>>> |	Internet:  dseah@wpi.wpi.edu
| Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute |	Bitnet:	   dseah@wpi.bitnet
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