Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!decwrl!purdue!i.cc.purdue.edu!j.cc.purdue.edu!pur-ee!a.cs.uiuc.edu!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!clio!brewer From: brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Need info on Mac MIDI and Jasmine Message-ID: <17000117@clio> Date: 9 Jul 88 20:27:00 GMT References: <127200033@inmet> Lines: 91 Nf-ID: #R:inmet:127200033:clio:17000117:000:6008 Nf-From: clio.las.uiuc.edu!brewer Jul 9 15:27:00 1988 Okay, here goes. The Cirrus is a good drive hardware wise. The Cirrus has gotten good marks all around for their small size, nice case, and excelent worksmanship. The LaCie 80 has the fastest access time of any external I have seen (18 ms). It uses the Quantum drive, with their special DisCache buffer (64K of RAM that caches each track as it is read). All in is a good drive in most physical respects (except that you have to rip it open to change the SCSI address). The problems occur with the driver software. In general, it looks prettyslick, with multiple, automount, password-protectable partitions, that can be accessed from a DA. BUT, there is a _MAJOR_ fatal flaw in their driver. If for any reason you are forced to do a 'dirty' restart (like hitting the programmers switch, or pulling the plug) it trashes the disk directory. Your drive will not boot after a 'dirty' restart. Actually it turns out that the directory can be repaired, with a little know-how. That reminds me, I should mention that the drive came with one badly photocopied sheet of paper that basically said "Plug 'er in, and let 'er rip!" Apparently the documentation is being reprinted or somesuch, and will be sent to all people when ready. For any other Cirrus 80 people out there who don't know the repair method, here it is. Boot with your working copy of the SilverLining software (you did make a copy of that disk the second you got it in your hand, didn't you?) You should probably make SilverLining the startup application to speed things up, but that isn't required. Once in SilverLining, click the "Vol. Manager" button. You will see a list of all your logical volumes (probably one big one unless you figured out how to make others). Click on the "Mount" button next to whichever drive is your boot drive. That button should now be checkmarked. Now click on "OK". There will be a pause. Then you will get a dialog and a beep saying "Bad directory on volume _____. Do you want to initialize it?" And the "OK" button is the _DEFAULT_!!!!! Whoever programmed this piece of software from hell ought to be taken out and shot! I mean its bad enough that a naive user has to deal with the Finder telling him the volume is damaged, and does he want to initalize it, but actually making initialize the default is nothing short of pure unadulterated stupidity and/or sadism. By now you should realize that you want to click "Cancel". Now the #%@*$ program cutely gives you a dialog that says "Volume header info seems bad. Want to try alternate header info?" ARRRRRGGGGG!!! Think of all the people who will initialize their drives and never see this message! You click on "OK" here, and then you get an alert telling you that you should use Disk First Aid to fix the free block count if this works. Don't worry, it (apparently) works every time. Then it will give you the original "Do you want to initalize this drive?" dialogagain, as though the fix didn't work. Say "Cancel". Then say cancel to the repair dialog. Then get out of the Godforsaken program and get back to the Finder with the Quit menu item. Now, run the Disk First Aid that is also on the SilverLining disk. When DFA asks you if you want to repair it, say yes. Now there is one more thing you have got to do. You have to re-bless the System Folder on your hard disk. When you are back in the Finder, your hard disk will be there. Open it up, and then open your System Folder. Did you notice that it didn't have that funny little mini System icon on it? That means it isn't blessed (translation : the Finder doesn't know its the System Folder). Now drag the Finder out onto the desktop, or just somewhere out of the System Folder. Then drag it back in. Close the System Folder. The little icon should now be back on your System Folder. Thats it! Your drive is now it tip-top condition. After having done this about 15-20 times, I have gotten it down so that I can do it in almost exactly 2 minutes. Believe me, it is not a pleasant experience knowing that if you hit the wrong button or accidently hit return at the wrong time it will totally erase your drive. Oh yeah, also, if you hold downthe Command key when you enter the SilverLining software, it will ask you if youwant to scavange for volumes. "Wow," I thought, "someone was smart enough to realize that this problem existed, and so they built in this little trick." So, being the bold adventurer that I am, I said OK. ARRRRGGGGG!!! Apparently in SilverLining, "scavenge for volumes" means find all volumes and initialize them!!! So much for intelligence... So, the drive is good (so is the neat little carring case for that matter), but the software SUCKS. I have yet to receive a manual, or the promisedSilverServer software (makes drives mountable over a serial connection), a $149 value. The end result is that it is somewhat scarry using the drive, because you never can tell when some PD software is going to bite and force me to use the programmers switch. LaCie's tech support says that they know about the problem and they're working on it, but they say they can't reproduce it!! All you have to do is hit the reset switch for crying out loud! And to add insult to injury, I have zero technical documentation on the drive so I can't use any of the generic SCSI drivers (SF&I comes to mind) because I don't know anything about the drive!! In summary, I wouldn't buy a LaCie right now, as you are bound to have problems and frustrations. But, being naive and optimistic, I hope someday LaCiewill fix their driver, send me my manual and SilverServer software, and all willbe right in the world (until I fill up the 80 megs, of course). Oops, forgot to say that these experiences are with the Cirrus 80 drive from LaCie, on my Mac II. LaCie says the problem is with the disk cache, and so only occurs with the 80 Meg model, but I would trust them about as far as I can throw them. Robert Brewer brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu {ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!brewer