>I've bought three of these sorts of things from Staples; two Maxtors and >an IBM. >All are fine and working today on my Beige MT.
The ones which are NOT good are those which *appear* to be the same as the regular priced drive, but instead only have 2 MB cache (or some other significant alteration). These turned out to be the same HDA (head disk assembly), but the logic board was completely different. A number of my acquaintances and I have experienced D.O.A. or infant mortality with these "bait and switch" drives (2 MB cache instead of 8 MB). Some deceptive practices are to call a 120 GB, say, drive a 100 GB drive with 20 GB of "bonus" space. Like, I'm *really* getting 20 GB "for free". Anyway, an exhaustive check showed that the flawed product was an intentionally cost-reduced version, using a different logic board, not just a smaller (in capacity) cache RAM chip, and this flawed product was simply no good. My particular drive probably began to fail after a few hours of use, but the failures did not become traceable to the drive for a few weeks, after which an "over the counter" exchange was no longer possible. So, I had to download a test, which was executable only on a PC, test the failed drive, and report the "syndrome code" to the manufacturer, in order to get a replacement through the RMA process. The replacement was a true 8 MB cache drive, not a costed-down 2 MB cache drive. As in all these cases, the warranty of the originally purchased drive applies. -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
