My original request:
> Hello!
>
> I hate to bother everyone in other parts of the country with this but maybe
> you can still help.
>
> I have a Sun QIC tape drive that needs repair. I hesitate to take it to Sun
> because I'm afraid I won't see it again for 6 months. Do you know of anyone
> in the greater Silicon Valley area that does repair? It's somewhat urgent
> because It's the only such tape device that we have and we use it quite
> frequently.
>
> Thanks for your help
Most of the replies I recieved tersely reminded me that readers of the
sun-managers list are all over the world, not just in the US. For those of
you I offended, please accept my most humblest of apologies. Had I
remembered this list has such a far reaching audience I probably wouldn't
have used it for this question since I was looking for a local repair place.
My mistake - I promise I won't do it again. :-)
It seems that the consensus is that these things don't need repairing very
often and when they do it'll probably cost more to repair than it does to
replace (disposable tape drives, what a concept :-)). Some suggested that I
take it to Sun anyway and that it won't take nearly as long as I think it
will.
Shortly after I sent out this request another person in my office attempted
to repair the drive. He removed the cover and thorougly cleaned the heads
and cleaned the dust from the moving parts. IT WORKED!!! So I didn't have
to send out the drive for repair or buy another afterall. I guess these
things ARE more sturdy that I originally thought.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to send me an answer. Here they all
are:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ralph@swmerc.rain.com (Ralph Merwin) Mark,
I'm not sure of the market down there, but when I recently tried to get a
winchester repaired, I found that it was just a little bit more expensive
to just get a brand new unit! If I repaired the old drive, it would have a
short warrantee period, but the new drive would have the full manufacturer's
warantee. It's quicker to buy new as well...
Ralph
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: geertj@ica.philips.nl (Geert Jan de Groot)
SUN might still repair it for you. If you are licensed to swap FRU (Field
Replacable Units) yourself, give SUN the part number and they can
send one soon (8 hours here, if need be). I do it all the time.
I suppose you don't have such a license; give them a call anyway
and see what they can work out. You might be surprized.
If you are good in electronics, and know how to handle ESD equipment,
it still might work.
Geert Jan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: mann@emma.la.asu.edu (Mark Mann)
Our Sun office has a lot of "extra" hardware laying around for just your
type of emergency. Whenever we have an equipment failure which cannot
be fixed at our site, they just switch out the part(s). Why don't you
call your Sun office and see if such an arrangement could be made.
Mark
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Chris Keane <chris@rufus.state.COM.AU>
>
> I hate to bother everyone in other parts of the country with this but maybe
> you can still help.
And, in fact, many other parts of the world :-)
regards...
Chris Keane. State Bank NSW ph. +61 2 259 4459
Unix Systems Administrator (Group Treasury) chris@rufus.state.COM.AU
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: mwp.michael <MWP.MICHAEL@MELPN1.Prime.COM>
> I hate to bother everyone in other parts of the country with this but ma
/|\
|
Try the WORLD --
> I have a Sun QIC tape drive that needs repair. I hesitate to take it to
PrimeService repair all manner of Sun gear and at reasonable prices. I'm
not sure if there is an office near you, but look in the phone book under
Prime and ask the switchboard for a service manager in PrimeService. One
thing we never like to do is keep gear for 6 months (that's way too long
to wait to bill a customer :)
Cheers, Michael
Michael Panosh mwp.michael@melpn1.prime.com
PrimeService, Australia
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: birger@vest.sdata.no (Birger A. Wathne)
>Hello!
>
>I hate to bother everyone in other parts of the country with this but maybe
>you can still help.
>
Other parts of the country?
You americans are not the only ones on the net. Your message goes to
the whole world, unless you put in a 'Distribution: <something>'
header. I don't know what legal distribution names exist over there, so
you should check with your news admin.
We could fix it quicly if you were our customer. It would be more
expensive if you don't have a service agreement that covers it (Our
service agreements come in different flavours, from 4-hour on-site to 3
day return-to-us). I would guess your Sun distributor could fix it
quickly if you are willing to pay for it...
I am not trying to hijack you as our customer, as we are located in Norway...
Birger
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Martin Earl <martin@language-linguistics.umist.ac.uk>
> I hate to bother everyone in other parts of the country with this but maybe
> you can still help.
^^^^^^^
That should be world! Sun-managers isn't just in the US!
Martin
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martin Earl, martin@ccl.umist.ac.uk
Centre for Computational Linguistics, Tel: +44 61 200 3111
UMIST, PO Box 88, Manchester M60 1QD, UK Fax: +44 61 200 3099
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: robert@verdix.com
Mark,
I used to be a field engineer for Sun and I NEVER heard of any solid
repair taking 6 months. Who told you it would. Worst case senario:
you don't have a service contract and you send it out to tech support
for repair, it still shouldn't take but a week or so (at the outside).
Sometimes the local office might let you bring it in and exchange it
yourself (of course, if you don't have a maintenance agreement, you'll
still have to pay for it) that day. Why don't you call Sun and ask
them what they can do for you, I think you'll find they're very easy
to deal with and they'll try to help however they can.
================================================================================
Robert Brown
Systems Administrator
Verdix Corporation
205 Van Buren St.
Herndon, VA 22070
robert@verdix.com
===============================================================================
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: don@mars.dgrc.doc.ca (Donald McLachlan)
Sorry I can't help but I thought I should point out that your audience is
a lot larger than the rest of the country. Try the rest of the world.
Later, don
================================================================================
Mark Glasser
------------------------------------------------------------------------
markg@nextwave.com Nextwave Design Automation
450 San Antonio Road #27
Palo Alto, CA 94306
(voice) 415.855.9795
(fax) 415.855.9792
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:06:46 CDT