Re: Puzzling System Action

> 
> Personally, I like Al Barsa's story about the OEM hardware...
> http://archive.midrange.com/midrange%2Dl%2Darchive/199708/msg00294.html

  We have a customer who 'saved a lot of money' with xxx tape drive and yyy Disk
drives as well.  First they discovered that their xxx 8mm tape drive really was
configured as a 9348 and as such would not properly IPL from tape.  Thus an OS
upgrade turned into a major major big deal.  Having experienced that (and
purchasing an IBM tape drive) we were CERTAIN that they would lose the yyy disk
on their next upgrade but, no. SO the fun begins: 

  During thier CISC to RISC upgrade (when the A900 2000 code is displayed on the
panel with the attention light on) thier existing drawer of 8 1GB units goes (as
Al likes to say) casters up.  Of course there is no obvious symptom since the
attention light is already on and restoring from 8mm tape is slow anyway. 
However after a VERY long time I noticed that the A900 2000 had been replaced
with a '9337 xxxx' error.  Yup, blew a planar board in the drive array.  LUCKY
US we had another drawer ready to install so we could swap planars.  Well the
new planar decided to spend 6 HOURS validating that the drives were indeed
healthy.  They were, so we continued.  However after the initial load we needed
the space the new drives were to give us before converting the programs to RISC
and adding the RISC versions of their main apps.  We convinced the maintenance
guys (not IBM of course) to get in their car, get parts, and show up ASAP
despite it being 4AM on Sunday.  So they drive all the way from detroit (3.5
hours) with the parts, and while carrying an entire drawer of disk into the door
on his shoulder he ducks to miss the door frame and the power supply comes out
and does a swan dive, destroying itself on the floor!!!  BUT WHOS CARES BECAUSE
THEY BROGHT THE WRONG PARTS!!!  Good news is they brought two of em BOTH WRONG. 
It didn't get any better from there with LOTS of finger pointing.  Longest
CISC-RISC I've ever done.  Their business was down for three days because of
those drives.

  Guess what brand of drives they are buying now.  (Three guesses and the first
two don't count).  Yup IBM.

  - Larry


-- 
Larry Bolhuis         | What do you want to reload today?
Arbor Solutions, Inc  | 
(616) 451-2500        | Two rules to success in life:
lbolhui@ibm.net       | 1. Never tell people everything you know.
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