Re: FocusDrive and Interrupts

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

On 11/1/2010 6:16 PM, D Finnigan wrote:

> Btw, here's a lesson learned from personal experience: when they suggest
> "baking" a disk in the oven to relieve stiction, be sure to set the
> temperature to something less than 150 degrees F. I had it in there for
> about 3 minutes at that temperature, on two occasions about 20 minutes
> apart, and that seems to have toasted (ha) the drive. The mechanics still
> work, but something inside failed worse than it was before I baked it.
>
> Oh well. It was failing anyway.

A much gentler way of dealing with many stiction problems is to
arrange the drive so that the body can be easily torqued about
its rotational axis while connected.  Then apply power and rapidly
(but without any "banging"!) oscillate the drive back and forth
around its rotational axis.

This oscillating acceleration, together with the torque of the
motor, will often break the platters free, allowing the drive
to spin up.  When it does, don't shut it down until you've copied
its contents to another (working) drive.

It may restart for awhile without further torquing, or it may
not, but it won't matter if you've copied its contents.  ;-)

-michael

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