Coolmax Hard Disk Enclosures Aren’t Even Pretty to Look At
After a productive appointment with my acupuncturist I went to my favorite computer store in San Francisco, the always lovely Central Computer, and picked up a hard disk enclosure for a drive from my old laptop. The idea was to have a small backup drive (12 gigs seemed REALLY large back then) and maybe some tools on it that I could use when doing computer-stuff for people. Instead, I ended up with a little aluminum box that can’t even prop the door open.
The Coolmax HD-211 Hard Disk Enclosure (these bastards don’t deserve a link from me) claimed support for Mac OS 8.6 or higher on the package. I can’t speak for it’s support of 8.6 because I’m running 10.3 (Panther runs like a cheetah on crack on my ibook so my Tiger upgrade disc sits lonely and forgotten) but it certainly doesn’t work on OS X. It might run on the operating system but I don’t know because I got rid of that steaming pile of donkey dung as soon as I could.
Yes, I RTFM. I pored through local help files. I searched Apple’s site. I used the ubiquitous search engine. I even searched Usenet. All to no avail. I don’t care that it was only eighteen bucks, it’s the principle of the thing. I now have to leave the house again, a very painful process for me because of my spinal condition, and waste another three hours of my life returning it. In fact, it’s going to end up costing me because I’ll have to purchase a BART ticket to get to and from there.
Coolmax, you’ve burned me once. It won’t happen again. If I have one small part in bringing you down then I’ll go to my grave a happy man. Coolmax is dead, long live Elvis.