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From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: Seagate fails on powerup
Message-ID: <32282@cup.portal.com>
Date: 31 Jul 90 08:25:09 GMT
References: <1990Jul30.153310.7818@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 42

hgm@ccvr1.ncsu.edu (Hal G. Meeks) in <1990Jul30.153310.7818@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu>
writes:

	I've had a Seagate 251N for over two years. Contrary to the
	experiences of others on the net, I've had no problems....until this
	morning.

	I have the classic "stiction" problem. The drive fails to spin up.
	I've taken it out of the machine, and bent the grounding strap back.
	I'm now trying to remember if it is as simple as turning the spindle
	(a small black "bump"). The thought of taking pliers to it concerns
	me.

	Any experiences welcome. 

Welcome to the "club".  :-(

As discussed last year in this forum, the problem requires over a year of
operation before it surfaces (no pun :-); i.e. after the warranty expires.

If you don't rotate the drive's spindle, how do you expect to "break" the
stiction?  As I reported last month (re: an ST157N), gentle application of
pliers to the "bump" with a twisting motion should do the trick.  Then power
up and get your data off that drive ASAP and buy another manufacturer's HD as
a replacement.

Sigh.  I cannot think of any other computer-related company (except, perhaps,
for C.Ltd) whose products have caused so much grief for so many people.

Because of my own experience with Seagate (11 drives and 11 failures; drives
including ST251 and ST157), I cannot recommend ANY product from that company.
Seagates ALSO have failed in my office secretaries' Macs due to stiction,
and I've received hundreds of emails from others reporting problems with
Seagate drives in systems by AT&T, Motorola, IBM, etc.

Last month's posting (by someone else) titled "Other than that.." (re: Seagates
and non-spin) strongly suggests that Seagate has NOT gotten its act together
and is continuing to manufacture defective drives.

Caveat emptor.

Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]