Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!sun-barr!newstop!texsun!letni!mic!cms2!tomf
From: tomf@cms2.UUCP (Tom Fortner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: HD doesn't spin after power on ???
Message-ID: <351@cms2.UUCP>
Date: 9 Oct 90 21:33:36 GMT
References: <19860002@hpwad.HP.COM# <19860004@hpwad.HP.COM> <48235@bigtex.cactus.org>
Organization: Christian Medical & Dental Society
Lines: 38

In article <48235@bigtex.cactus.org# james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen) writes:
#In <19860004@hpwad.HP.COM>, mleiber@hpwad.HP.COM (#Michael Leiber) wrote:
#
#> Thanks to all who responded. It finally came out that the cause of the
#> problem must be the so called "stiction", which seems to be well known
#> for Seagates drives (at least some mentioned it). At least for bunch
#> of drives, Seagate used a lubricant on the drive spindle which is too
#> heavy and causes the spindle to sometimes stick at all. The drive
#> motor then is not strong enough to unstick, so ...
#
#I have seen several 150meg CDC ESDI drives "stick" like this.  Within
#a few seconds of powering up the drive LED starts blinking and the
#drive does nothing.  I take the drives out of the chassis and shake it
#around the spindle axis.  Don't shake the drive back and forth: twist
#so that the platter moves.  So far this has always worked.  Maybe your
#drive's failure mode is similar.
#
#PS. I still like the CDC 150meg ESDI drive: that's what I used in all
#of my (DOS) development machines.
#-- 

In all fairness, stiction is a characteristic of thin film technology and
the carbon coat lubricant that keeps the heads from wearing away the media,
not a Seagate (or any other manufacturer) problem. So if you buy a drive,
don't buy a thin film drive, and if you already have and it fails, it can
be converted by a good drive shop to the older media technology.
Tom

    Tom Fortner                        ** The greatest gift a man can offer 
    Christian Medical & Dental Society ** his Maker is a repentant committed 
    UUCP: cms2!tomf                    ** life and a disciplined, diligent 
    INTERNET: tomf@cms2.lonestar.org   ** mind.

-- 
    Tom Fortner                        ** The greatest gift a man can offer 
    Christian Medical & Dental Society ** his Maker is a repentant committed 
    UUCP: cms2!tomf                    ** life and a disciplined, diligent 
    INTERNET: tomf@cms2.lonestar.org   ** mind.