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From: RIDOUT@ddnvx1.afwl.af.mil
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: Seagate fails on powerup
Message-ID: <9372@ddnvx1.afwl.af.mil>
Date: 31 Jul 90 11:42:14 GMT
References: <1990Jul30.153310.7818@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <32282@cup.portal.com>
Lines: 62

In article <32282@cup.portal.com>, thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes:
> 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 ]

This is not an amiga experance but since I have been following this discussion
I thought it was appropos.
I run some VAXes here and I needed to update the console for my VAX 8700.
DEC does that by building a console on a harddrive at their shop and then
swap it with yours.  They did and when it was put in I noticed it was a
Segate (ST157 I beleve).  Soon after we had a powerout and the drive failed to
spinup.  After this happened a few times I talked to DEC and said I want my
original disk back.  They build the console and swaped it back.  Once again I
looked at what drive is was.  Well what do you know, it was a Quantum.  It has
always, and is continuing to work fine.
The Dec field service engineer says thay have at times gone through several
segates before finding one that works.
-- 
****************************************************************************
*  Brian Ridout                     Internet: ridout@ddnvx1.afwl.af.mil    *
*  wl/scev                                                                 *
*  Kirtland AFB NM 87117            My Apple is better than your Orange.   *
****************************************************************************