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From: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: WARNING: Symantec Utilities ('SUM') trashes partitions!!!
Message-ID: <4464@fluke.COM>
Date: 17 Jul 88 08:04:15 GMT
References: <5579@dasys1.UUCP>
Sender: news@tc.fluke.COM
Reply-To: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer)
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 54

In article <5579@dasys1.UUCP> alexis@dasys1.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) writes:
>On a Mac II with a clean system 4.2, unifinder, and three inits (Suitcase,
>PramFix, and the Partition INIT in question), this DA destroyed partitions
>which I had created only moments after I threw out the other copies of my
>files. This is a 100% reproducible error: After mounting any partition,
>ANY FURTHER ATTEMPTS TO MOUNT ANY PARTITION WILL DESTROY THAT PARTITION
>IMMEDIATELY, WITHOUT ANY NOTICE. For those of you who have files in a SUM
>partition, you can get them out safely by NEVER mounting more than one
>partition in one invocation of the DA.
>[...]
>>>>>>>>>>> FLAME ON!!!!! <<<<<<<<<
>
>This is the most inexcusable, irresponsible, idiotic, egregious blunder I
>have ever seen from a "reputable" software company. Even worse, I can't
>just say "never buy from Symantec," because they have also produced some
>of the best software ever written for the Macintosh. Lightspeed Pascal
>and Lightspeed C, for example. Q&A for PMS-DOS is a wonderful program (if
>you must use MS-DOS...)
>
>I can only conclude that this bug is a fluke, and that the programmer
>responsible for this is utterly irresponsible, incompetent, or both. I
>hope that the programmer gets another job in another industry soon, because
>if he (or she) ever works again, it will endanger more people!
>
>While I'm at it I'd also like to roast Symantec's testing and QA people.
>They really fell down on the job this time!

Two things:

1)  Why couldn't it be some interaction with Pramfix or Suitcase?  Sound
    like more testing needs to be done, especially since it worked fine on
    my hard disk (Mac Plus, 2.5 Megs, lots of INITs).  How about *asking
    others* whether they've seen this problem before accusing people of
    being incompetents?

2)  If this is the most "idiotic, egregious blunder" you've ever seen from a
    computer company, you're forgetting your complaint a few days ago about
    HyperCard compaction, which was "inexcusable".  How about a little less
    beating of the chest and hyperbole, and a little more accuate
    information, eh? 

                        "When people are least sure, they are often most
                         dogmatic."
                                        -- John Kenneth Galbraith

                    "I have discovered that all human evil comes from this,
                     man's being unable to sit still in a room."
                                        -- Blaise Pascal
---
                                        Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
INTERNET:     moriarty@tc.fluke.COM
Manual UUCP:  {uw-beaver, sun, microsoft}!fluke!moriarty
CREDO:        You gotta be Cruel to be Kind...
<*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>