Slight HDI flame, floppy tape question
Pasi 'PJo' Jokela
Couple of days ago I saw someone bash Hard Drives International in
this newsgroup. Well, I tought I could add my $1,135 worth. Here's
what happened (look for "---" if you want to skip the whining):
In late October '91 we faxed to HDI an order for a hard drive, a tape
backup drive, and three additional tapes. In early December, when we
had heard nothing from them, we called them and found out they had no
record of our order. Great..
So we faxed the order again. Too bad (we later found out) that the price
of the tape drive had gone down by $20 but the magazine in which was the
ad with the new price came _after_ we faxed the order. Anyway, the hopeful
waiting period begins...
By mid-January '92 we had already given up the hope that we'd actually
receive something. But we shouldn't have been that pessimistic. HDI
remembered to bill us! The goods we ordered.. well, they seemed to be
vaporware (literally). So we faxed them a query using 25% flame level.
And about week later we received a package containing a hard drive,
a Taiwanese HD/FD controller for the tape drive, and three tapes. The
tape drive itself was in back order. The hard drive was 30MB larger
than we had ordered (240MB vs. 210MB) and cost $50 more. In the order
we had told them we have an ESDI controller that supports three
floppies, so the IDE hard drive adapter is essentially useless and
cost us $45!! (_They_ probably got it for $5...) The price of the
tape drive was specified to be $279 like we had specified in the order,
not knowing it had already come down to $259. Things that make you
go hmm..??
Now we were waiting for the tape drive. After a month or so _I_ was
getting pretty pissed off and sent them a nice little threatening flame
(flame level ~75%). It worked. Couple of days later we finally received
the tape drive. The drive was alone in the box. No trace of the 80MB
tape they had promised to include with the drive, nor was there any kind
of installation instructions or backup software.
Two days ago we sent them a fax where we ask them to send us the 80MB
tape and installation instructions/backup software if they should have
been included in the first place. We also ask them to either credit
our VISA with that $20 or send us one additional tape.
Btw, in several of the faxes we sent them (including the original order)
we told them to fax us an acknowledgement. Guess how many faxes we
received...
Now that we have most of the goods we ordered and paid for I'm actually
somewhat relieved, but I'll certainly think at least twice before ordering
from them again.
---
Enough with whining, I have a question for you. I'm having little trouble
with the tape drive. It should be 120/250MB model (there's no brand label
in front but in contains IC's that are labeled "Colorado") and I'm using
Identity ID-2120 tapes. I found Colorado's backup software (ver 2.50) from
a local ftp host.
The problem is that the drive formats the tapes to 60MB format (QIC-40).
I don't remember seeing any DIP switches in the drive (though there were
two square boxes on the circuit board labeled "120" and "250" and the
former was checked). There was no apparent way to set the format from
the Colorado's TAPE software.
I also have PC Tools 7.0 installed and its backup program offers me
either 40 or 60 megabyte tape choises. It doesn't seem to format the
tape properly, but it can read and write tapes formatted with Colorado's
software (60MB QIC-40 format).
I'm not exactly a novice what comes to PCs but I don't know how a floppy
tape is controlled so I don't have the slightest idea of what might be
wrong. Except if the drive is a 60/120MB model after all. :-/
So if you have any idea of what could be wrong, please post or mail me.
I'm also interested in all information on floppy tape interface (never
ending quest for knowledge:-). Thanks in advance to all who respond!
PJo
PS. My first posting using nn(1). I hope I don't fuck up anything.. :)
--
Pasi 'PJo' Jokela - Pasi....@hut.fi - p...@vipunen.hut.fi - PJo on IRC
Q: Why did the pervert cross the road?
A: Because he couldn't get his dick out of the chicken.
Urv, byra Xhvfzn Ynccnynvara. Xbcvbv zvahg fvtangherrfv wn yvvgl zhxnna!
--
Pasi 'PJo' Jokela - Pasi....@hut.fi - p...@vipunen.hut.fi - PJo on IRC
Q: Why did the pervert cross the road?
A: Because he couldn't get his dick out of the chicken.
Urv, byra Xhvfzn Ynccnynvara. Xbcvbv zvahg fvtangherrfv wn yvvgl zhxnna!
John Burton
>
> Couple of days ago I saw someone bash Hard Drives International in
>this newsgroup. Well, I tought I could add my $1,135 worth. Here's
>what happened (look for "---" if you want to skip the whining):
>
> In late October '91 we faxed to HDI an order for a hard drive, a tape
>backup drive, and three additional tapes. In early December, when we
>had heard nothing from them, we called them and found out they had no
>record of our order. Great..
>
> So we faxed the order again. Too bad (we later found out) that the price
>of the tape drive had gone down by $20 but the magazine in which was the
>ad with the new price came _after_ we faxed the order. Anyway, the hopeful
>waiting period begins...
>
>
>--
>Pasi 'PJo' Jokela - Pasi....@hut.fi - p...@vipunen.hut.fi - PJo on IRC
> Q: Why did the pervert cross the road?
> A: Because he couldn't get his dick out of the chicken.
>Urv, byra Xhvfzn Ynccnynvara. Xbcvbv zvahg fvtangherrfv wn yvvgl zhxnna!
I can't say how HDI is on international orders, but I've dealt with
them several times in the past couple of years, and have *always* been
pleased with their service & responsiveness...one of the key things I
did was to ALWAYS talk to a human and NEVER use a fax, unless to
simply confirm what was said verbally. I also always got the name of
the sales person I was dealing with. Perhaps if you had called and
asked instead of faxing and specifying prices, much of your problems
could have been avoided right up front...
John
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| John Burton |
| G & A Technical Software |
| jcb...@gatsibm.larc.nasa.gov |
| bur...@asdsun.larc.nasa.gov |
| jcb...@cs.wm.edu |
| |
| Disclaimer: Hey, what can I say...These are *my* views, not those |
| of anyone else, be they employer, school, or government|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Steve Owens
Wow! These flames about HDI really suprise me. Let me
explain why.
I just ordered a hard drive from them last Tuesday (a Seagate
130Mb IDE drive) as a replacement for a 40Mb WD drive that crashed over
the previous weekend.
I explained the situation to the guy on the other end, and asked
him about Fed Ex. overnight. He said their basic shipping was Fed Ex.
2nd day air anyway, and I said that was fine. The order was placed about
8:30 am their time.
The next morning I had the hard drive. I checked the bill and I
was charged the normal shipping fee. I installed the drive, and I haven't
had a problem with it yet.
This was the first time I'd ever ordered from them, so I was a
little leary about the service. After this experience, I'd think nothing
of ordering from them again.
SJO
Pasi 'PJo' Jokela
> In article <1992Mar7.1...@huuhaa.cs.hut.fi> p...@conan.cs.hut.fi (Pasi 'PJo' Jokela) writes:
> I can't say how HDI is on international orders, but I've dealt with
> them several times in the past couple of years, and have *always* been
> pleased with their service & responsiveness...one of the key things I
> did was to ALWAYS talk to a human and NEVER use a fax, unless to
> simply confirm what was said verbally. I also always got the name of
> the sales person I was dealing with. Perhaps if you had called and
> asked instead of faxing and specifying prices, much of your problems
> could have been avoided right up front...
Well, the problem with voice call is that it's quite expensive to
call to the States from Finland. I can fax one page in under one
minute and fit quite a lot of text on it.
Two years ago we ordered (using fax just like this time) a hard drive
from HDI and it was here after a little over week. It was the first
time we ordered from the States and I was pretty impressed of how easy
it was.
What pisses me off is that this time HDI continuously seems to "forget"
us and our order. The second time we faxed the order (after a phone
conversation with a real person (Joe Ross, Int'l Sales Manager)) it was
received (and apparently processed) OK. So don't you think everything
_should_ go smoothly after that?? It _shouldn't_ be necessary to notify
them to _ship_ the goods!
Btw, next two times we tried to speak to Joe Ross we only reached a
voice mail system.. The other time we left a message and asked him
to call back but he never did. Oh well..
The tape drive they sent us is a wrong model (QIC-40 drive instead of
QIC-80) so I'll probably have to call them and arrange a swap. This
all will of course cost more $$$. *Sigh*, maybe I should move to the
States or something..
PJo
PS. Anyone know what's the difference between QIC-40 and QIC-80 formats?
Is the read/write head of the drives different? They use the same
circuit board in both Jumbo models so I thought there could be like
one percent chance that they artificially limit some drives to QIC-40
format.. (this belongs to alt.folklore.computers:-)