Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!xanth!mcnc!ecsvax!mvolo
From: mvolo@ecsvax.UUCP (Michael R. Volow)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: HELP! ST251 isn't spinning up much anymore
Summary: May be the power supply or connectors
Message-ID: <7288@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: 9 Jul 89 13:55:19 GMT
References: <20197@cup.portal.com>
Distribution: na
Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service
Lines: 23

In article <20197@cup.portal.com>, Scott_A_Dalrymple@cup.portal.com writes:
> I wonder if anyone out there has had a problem I am having with my
> Seagate ST-251 40MB hard drive.  Lately it is very difficult to get it
> to spin up when I turn on my AT clone.  It first happened probably a
> year ago.  Not knowing what else to try, I pulled the cables off the
> drive, cleaned the contacts, and reseated the connectors.  To my
> surprise, the disk the spun right up when I applied power.  So, about


I had very similar problems with my ST225 in an upgraded IBM PC. In
many power supplies, the clips in the white connectors are subject to
deformation, make poor connection, and as a result the HD does not
get up to speed in criterior time, and therefore does not boot from 
the disk. Usually, swapping a connector from one of the floppies would
do trick for me -- for a while. Carefully and thoroughly seating the
connector also helped. Sometimes compressing the clips in the power
connectors makes a better contact. If the problem happens consistently
with all of the connectors, it could be your power supply. Power supplies
are cheaper than HD's, so some kind of substitution or replacement of
this could also be diagnostic.

M Volow, VA Medical Center, Durham, NC 27705
mvolo@ecsvax.UUCP           919 286 0411