Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!bu-cs!husc6!lloyd!kent
From: kent@lloyd.camex.uucp (Kent Borg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: LaCie disks -- "Well, how are they?"
Keywords: disk drive, Macintosh, SCS
Message-ID: <344@lloyd.camex.uucp>
Date: 16 Mar 89 16:45:51 GMT
References: <1702@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu>
Reply-To: kent@lloyd.UUCP (Kent Borg)
Organization: Camex, Inc., Boston, Mass USA
Lines: 62

I bought a LaCie 70 meg drive shortly before Christmas.  It comes with
a cable, carrying case (well made), partitioning software, and it
works.  (Mine also came with a small package of Hershey Kisses--though
that might have just been the Christmas season.)

The cable is thinner than your normal SCSI cable, which is nice, but
it is also non-standard.  25-pin D-connector at *both* ends, not just
at the Macintosh end.  I figured that cables are delicate things and I
would hate to suffer without my drive for want of a cable, so I bought
an extra (I think it was just $15).  Both cables work fine.

Compared to my old Miniscribe-based Jasmine, this 70 meg drive is
wonderfully fast.  On my stock Plus, it was like buying an accelerator
and having a hard disk thrown in for free.

I did once loose nearly everything on my disk, partly from my
cleverness/stupidity (amazing how those two so often go hand-in-hand)
and partly from the partitioning software not being fool proof.  I
decided that I needed to change the relative partition sizes (a great
feature, by the way).  I fired up the Silver Lining software to do the
job.  Turns out it doesn't want to move files around on the current
system partition (seems reasonable).  I said "No problem" and did a
switch launch to another hard disk I had on line.  Bad news.  Doing a
switch launch is *not* like rebooting off a different disk.  I can't
remember how the partitioning software died, but I know it brought
nearly everything with it.  The icons were still there, but everything
seemed to be corrupted.

Was I backed up???  Well, yes.  I was missing a couple of short things
I had written the day before, but I had complete copies of all the
rest of my data.  My applications were a different matter.  I do have
my original disks, and I also have copies of PD stuff.  It turns out
that it is a royal pain to arrange things the way they were.  This was
well over a month ago and my System folder still looks like a
hurricane has been through there.  All those icons in this big jumble.
I cringe every time I look.  Really must clean it up one of these
days.  What I miss most was some QuicKeys assignments and all those
"Preferences..." I had evolved to.

One more thing, the partitioning software allows you to set passwords.
The problems is that it doesn't always ask for them.  I have two
consecutive partitions with different passwords.  If I ask for the
first and give the correct password, it assumes I am a good guy and
will give my the second no-questions-asked.  Not very secure.

Yet one more thing: When programming in MacApp, if I have asked for a
partition using the Cirrus Volumes DA (as opposed to auto mounting
it), and then try to run a MacApp-written program which has debugging
turned on, whenever I move the mouse in to the debugging window, the
program crashes.  Certainly I am running other INITs and stuff, but as
far as I can tell it is caused by having mounted a volume manually.  I
have not chased it from the MacApp end which I should--might be
MacApp's fault.

Conclusions: 1) The LaCie drive is great, I would buy it again.  2)
Always be backed up.  3) 70 meg is not as big as it sounds.


Kent Borg
kent@lloyd.uucp
or
...!hscfvax!lloyd!kent