Re: Hard Drive Scare...

[Bill Shuff <bill2060@pop3.concentric.net>]

E.G. Land wrote:
> 
>         Switched on my GS and my hard drive wouldn't spin up.
> 
>         Got a screw driver and opened it up and fooled around until
>         I gently lifted the arm on cylinder. When I laid it back down
>         it recoiled back and the cylinder began spinning.
> 
>         This seems to have done the trick, but I'm wondering why the
>         arm froze in the first place and can I expect it to happen
>         again...
> 
>         EG

Your drive probably has a problem called "stiction".  It comes with age 
and causes to drive to fail to start spinning because the heads stick to 
the lubricant that is on the disks.  Drive motors are not powerful 
enough to break to sticking forces and start the platters spinning. I 
have always thought that opening a hard drive case and allowing dust to 
get on the platters is fatal as far as reliable service from the hard 
drive is concerned. I would recommend that you consider a new hard drive 
and that you make copies of data you don't want to lose.

There are two work arounds for the stiction problem, one is to never 
shut the drive off. That will not appreciably shorten its life.  The 
second is to pick up the drive when the power is turned on and give the 
case a sharp twist in the horizontal plane.  This is the equivalent to 
kick starting the platters because they will tend to stay still as the 
case and heads rotate around.  The net result is that the sticking is 
released and the drive will sometimes start to spin.  Never give a 
spinning drive that twist treatment!

Bill Shuff