CompuServe Messages

This is ridiculous. A spec is a spec. If a drive is not built to spec, and it fails, when treated according to the spec, just whose fault is it? You claim they "didn't test it in the real world", but it's fairly obvious that they did test it. They just didn't happen to test withg drives that failed. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that all drives that call themselves 'IDE' will conform to the IDE spec, poorly written as it is, in at least the major ways. The PC(lone) world is rampant with the triumph of perseverance and kludge over bad design, but one would think that it would not extend to an actual 'standard' expressed as a specification.