🚀 go-pugleaf

	Well, last night my Mac IIcx (9 days out of the Apple 90 day warranty)
started acting up. It turns out that I've been hit by the infamous 80 Meg
Quantum drive problem. The drive started freezing up in mid-operation, would
not boot about 75% of the time, and generally started to flake out. This is 
a tramatic thing to happen. Luckily I am backed up fairly and won't loose any
important files.
	This week's issue of MacWeek has a front page article describing Apple's
new policy for dealing with this problem. According to the article, Quantum has
released a new PROM for the drive's controller board that issues a higher level
of torque to the head mechanism and issue's a "full stroke command between
seeks". I am a bit skeptical about whether this a REAL solution to the 
problem, or just a temp fix to a long range problem. I am also wondering if 
this will slow down the overall performance of the drive.
	With this new article in hand, I took my IIcx to a local S.F. Bay Area
dealer today. I was told that since the IIcx is out of warranty, I would need
to pay a labor charge of $60 to "evaluate" the problem and that if it was
determined that this was a problem with the Quantum's PROM, then the new PROMs
that this dealer expected to get in four days, would be installed on my drive.
I was also told that if there was some "other" problem with the drive, I would
have to pay for a new hard drive.
	Because I was a little nervous about what the Apple dealer was telling
me, I called Apple Customer Relations in Cupertino. I was put on hold for about
10 minutes and was finally answered by a very friendly an helpful man, who
told me that he would call this dealer for me and explain that this problem
would be fixed at no charge per Apple's new commitment to extend the warranty
of the Quantum drives in out-of warranty Macs.

	I'll let you all know what happens!

	Peter Espen
	espen@well