>I came across a similar problem fairly recently when I was in the >position of donating old kit to a local charity. The hard drive simply >seemed to have "stuck". All I did was to haul the hard drive out of the >box, hold it in the palm of one hand and give it a bloody good slap >with the other hand!
Although this problem, dubbed "sticktion" back in the Seagate ST-225 (20 MB, 5.25 SCSI drive) days, was generally believed to be fixed by drive manufacturers in the 3.5" and 2.5" drives, and the last of the 5.25" drives, this problem occurs often with drives of any of the above sizes, should the drive be left unoperated for a relatively long period of time. The proper procedure to "fix" such a drive is to apply a source of power to the drive, listen for the drive's so-called dc controller to attempt to "spool up" the drive, which attempt will initially fail, but which the drive will repeatedly execute until the drive becomes "unstuck". Application of a firm slap to the *side* of the drive will eventually unstick the drive. It may take three to ten, or even more such attempts in order to resolve the problem. Once the drive starts to spool up, the problem is resolved. The "root cause" is a flaw in the formulation of the lubricant which is applied to the substrate of the disk platters during manufacturing. The originally formulation was OK, but the manufacturer "lost" the formulation and proceeded to ship a large, but unknown number of drives each having this flaw. Although IBM, unlike other manufacturers, made its own substrates, it also suffered from these problems. IBM drives most often seen with "sticktion" are the 1 GB and 2 GB, 1" high drives found in the Q950, the WGS 95, and the 9150 (and related models). -- Quadlist is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Quadlist info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/quadlist.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/quadlist%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
