Everhart, Glenn From: Terry Kennedy [terry@spcunb.spc.edu] Sent: Saturday, May 30, 1998 6:45 AM To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com Subject: Re: Why does Seagate ST19171N fail on INIT cmd? In comp.os.vms Lawrence Bleau wrote: > > ftp://ftp.seagate.com/techsuppt/seagate_utils/aspiid15.zip > > Thanks! Others have mentioned this "feature" to me, but not the location - or > existance - of the utility you mention. Until now the only utility I knew > about was one on a Mac or PC (yuck!). This will at least allow me to leave the > drive connected to my VMS system. Sorry, this is a PC utility. It requires an ASPI-compliant host adapter. I use a mini-notebook PC (a Compaq Aero) with an Adaptec 1460 PCMCIA SCSI card. That way I can just plug the notebook into any halted system (PC, VAX, Unix, etc.) and fiddle with the disk mode pages and/or update the drive firmware. The only requirement is that there not be any other SCSI activity and that the notebook SCSI is at an otherwise-unused SCSI ID. > > Second, you should not be dealing with a reseller unless they are providing > >better service than the manufacturer (and it's obvious that they are not). > [snip] > > Not to repeat myself, but at the time of purchase I believed the reseller *was* > reputable. Once the drive was bought I can't transfer the warranty or service > provisions to *another* reseller. I don't do any more business with them, btw, > but please don't assume I can fortell the future at the time every purchase is > made. I'm not *that* good :-) Right, but you should call the Seagate RMA line and see if you can get an RMA directly, cutting out the muddle-man 8-) > >Seagate's end-user warranty hotline is at 800-468-3472 > >and operates something like 18 hours a day - you can call this number, find > >out if your drive is in end-user warranty (you need the model number and > >serial number), and obtain an RMA. > > Thanks for this phone #. I actually called Seagate on another problem a year > or two ago, and they were not as cooperative as your reply suggests. I got a > runaround, basicly, and a lot of finger pointing: "Our firmware works, it's not > our fault," and, "We know of no problems with that model drive on that > operating system." Meanwhile, the drive wouldn't work on our VMS system. DEC > was no help, either. I finally found a solution through this newsgroup > (hurray!), and it was a cross between DEC's driver and the drive's firmware. > They *should* have known! Anyway, not to vent too much, that's why I didn't > call Seagate directly. That's a different number - "technical support". The number I gave is for warranty status and RMAs only. Seagate sells a *lot* of drives. They get a *lot* of calls, from mostly clue- less end-users who really should be calling the dealer they bought the drive from. When 99% of your callers act clueless, it's pretty easy to assume that they all are... Seagate has field offices all over the country, full of technical people who provide advice and support to OEMs and large end users. They can give you lots of documentation (for example, there's a 1/2" thick 8.5x11 manual just for the mode page data on Barracuda disk drives). They also have firmware release notes, firmware updates, etc. That is where the real tech support comes from - the main number in the booklet that came with the disk/on the web page is most- ly to provide simple assistance with installation problems and so on. > I may be wrong on this, but I also seem to remember Seagate telling me they > wouldn't service a drive under warranty directly, that I should go through the > vendor. Maybe my memory's bad, maybe they've changed policy. Anyway, that's > another reason I keep going back to the vendor. It depends on how the drive was purchased. Retail drives purchased from an authorized reseller or distributor (listed on Seagate's web page as "where to buy Seagate products) should be accepted directly by Seagate. Drives purchased as part of an OEM subsystem (for example, a Sun disk cabinet and disks) have to go back to the OEM, for a number of reasons. Feel free to call the 800 number with a serial number of a disk drive and try it - you can always bail out of the call after finding out the warranty status (so you can call with the SN of a good drive to check its warranty status). There is one case I can think of where you should return the disk to the dealer - Seagate's warranty is N years (5 years for current high-end disks) from the date of manufacture. This is to prevent people from calling with out-of-warranty disks and saying "but I just purchased it from a reseller!". Seagate's end-user resellers are required to provide warranty support for the full warranty period, starting from the date of shipment to you, the cus- tomer. As far as I know, this does *not* apply to distributors (like Tech Data). Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing terry@spcvxa.spc.edu St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA +1 201 915 9381 (voice) +1 201 435-3662 (FAX)