The Crash of '95

On November 1, 1995 the hard disk in my Macintosh Powerbook 540c died. Of course, it wasn't clear what was wrong, and the machine wouldn't boot from its floppy either. I gave it my best shot with Norton Utilities and then I took it to CJS Computer Service in Berkeley, and they determined that there was some sort of hardware problem.

So, I wanted it fixed as soon as possible. Apple computer was willing to ship me a box via overnight mail, fix it at their site, and ship it back. I hoped to avoid the shipping delay (mistake #1), so I opted to take my computer to a local Apple Authorized Warrantee center, a company called "Quest Micro Srevice". Their service order was printed out in ALL CAPS, I should have turned around right then and found another center, or shipped it to Apple. I didn't (mistake #2); I left it with them. They said it would take 2 to 5 days. I brought it in on Friday 11/3/95. The description of the problem was:

Won't boot from floppy or hard drive".

I called Quest the next Friday, and they had just decided that they needed to order a mother board. So they ordered it, and it incurred a order delay and then a shipping delay, plus a weekend, so it took a few days to receive it. Then, they found that the mother board they received didn't work. So, they ordered another. Another couple of days. This one worked, but the machine still wouldn't boot. Then they decided a new floppy drive was needed. That order was delayed an extra day, and didn't come in until Tuesday, 11/21.

It was clear they were swapping out parts, and incurring a delay for each "try". So, I called Apple on Friday 11/17 and had them ship me a box in case I needed to ship them my computer. I spoke with Arnie Benowitz in Apple's Customer Relations department. He listened to my story about Quest thus far. All he could really do was ask me to ship it to them, and give them a chance to fix it. He said that they would fix my machine or give me another one. He promised me they'd make me happy.

So when the floppy came in at Quest on 11/21, it came as no surprise to me that it did not fix the problem. I requested that Quest assmemble my computer, working or not. They did so within the hour, but the keyboard did not lay flat!

So, I already had the box on Tuesday, 11/21, and I shipped it that day at about 2:30 pm. I wrote a letter (hand printed, naturally) explaining that the machine won't boot from its floppy or hard disk, and that the keyboard didn't lay flat. This was of course Thanksgivingweek. On Friday, 11/24, I called Apple and they said it was currently on the bench being worked on. On Monday 11/27 an Apple technician called me to say that he was not going to be able to salvage my hard disk since it was fried. That was an IBM hard drive, by the way. He told me he'd put in a new hard drive, assemble my computer and ship it to me directly. He said I'd have it before 3:00 pm on Tuesday, 11/28.

Today, 11/28, at about 12:30 pm my computer was delivered to my door, packed in the same box I'd shipped it in. It worked perfectly. The keyboard lays flat too. :-)

I spent the rest of the day restoring my system from backups. I use a Zip drive for my backups, and I was concerned that I would need to install the Zip drive software before I could use them. It turns out that once the cartriges are formated (e.g. they have a backup image on them) you can access them on a Zip drive just like any other drive in your SCSI chain. By 6:00pm I had finished restoring my files from backups and did a bit of system administration. Then I attempted to connect to the internet with a double click on Netscape, relying on restored preferences, et al. And, it worked the first time.

What did I learn?

I learned a lot from this experience:
Last Updated: 10/28/95
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Howard Cohen - hoco@timefold.com