Another hardware damage story

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2 total messages Started by Jeremy J. Epstein Mon, 15 Jan 1990 17:40

#975

Author: Jeremy J. Epstein
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1990 17:40

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I was installing an upgrade to an online system in Miami a few
years ago.  For various reasons, we loaded about a gigabyte
of data onto the disks BEFORE shipping them (mainly to make
the upgrade go faster).  Anyway, these were 14" Winchesters
(four of them) mounted in a 19" cabinet wide 5" cabinet [Ampex
Capricorn's to be precise].

Due to a scheduling screwup, they were put on an ordinary freight
truck with a delivery of books from Washington DC to Florida,
so they got bounced a bit on the trip down.  The driver arrived
in Miami about 10pm (five hours late) and I had gone out for a
while to get some dinner.  The building had no loading dock, the
truck had no ramp, and he was in a rush, so he *pushed* the cabinet,
with the disks off the back of the truck (about four feet to the
ground).  The dump sh*t operator signed for it without marking the
treatment on the invoice, and the driver took off.

When I returned and heard what happened, I almost got on the plane
and headed home without plugging them in, but someone insisted that we
give it a shot.  Amazingly enough, there were no problems...we were
up within half an hour.
-- 
Jeremy Epstein
TRW Systems Division
703-876-4202
j...@virtech.uu.net

Re: Another hardware damage story

#976

Author: Henry Spencer
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1990 18:15

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In article <1990Jan15.174038.5859@virtech.uucp> jje@virtech.uucp (Jeremy J. Epstein) writes:
>... The building had no loading dock, the
>truck had no ramp, and he was in a rush, so he *pushed* the cabinet,
>with the disks off the back of the truck (about four feet to the
>ground)...  Amazingly enough, there were no problems...

I dimly recall somebody -- possibly George Goble of Purdue -- reporting
that Fujitsu Eagles sometimes got shipped with the heads unlocked.  You
had to look for it specifically, because generally they still worked!
-- 
1972: Saturn V #15 flight-ready|     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1990: birds nesting in engines | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry he...@zoo.toronto.edu

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