Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!dali.cs.montana.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!haven!adm!cmcl2!polyof!ted
From: ted@polyof.poly.edu (Theodore S. Kapela, Staff)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: HD will not spin up (sometimes), banging it helps; Suggestions?
Message-ID: <1990Oct30.204817.10657@polyof.poly.edu>
Date: 30 Oct 90 20:48:17 GMT
References: <1447@pedsga.UUCP> <124554@linus.mitre.org>
Organization: Polytechnic University
Lines: 35

In article <124554@linus.mitre.org> jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris) writes:
>In a recent article mikes@pedsga.UUCP (Mike Shulman) writes:
> 
>>  Well, like the subject line says, I seem to have a masacistic HD. It's
>>a Seagate ST125 (20 Meg, 3.5 format), and every once in a while when I
>>turn on my computer it refuses to spin up. The solution seems to be to
>>take it out and bang it hard a few times. Then re-install it, and it
                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^
  You do WHAT with your hard drive?  You should *NEVER* bang a hard drive!
You may try to turn the platters (actually the drum on top on some drives
if you can get to it.).  The last thing you want is to have the heads 
crash into the platters.  Banging the drive hard is definitely one way
to do this.

>
>Have you talked to Seagate about this?  I don't have any experience
>with their drive as such, but last year IBM replaced a slew of drives
>(primarily in the PS/2-70 series) which showed this symptom.   The problem

I have never had any trouble either.  I currently own two Seagate ST238R's,
One is five years old, the other is four years old.  They are 32M RLL format
drives.  When I first got the drives, I did a low level format once.
Never again did I even think about having to low-level format the drives
again.  I have never gotten "sector not found" or "general failure" errors
which could indicate this would be needed.  I have also NEVER had a problem
with the drives "Sticking".  The drives would get random use.  Very heavy
use for a few days, then no use at all for a few days.  They have (un-
fortunately) gone through some pretty severe temperature and humidy extremes.
Still, I have never had a problem.

-- 
...............................................................................
    Theodore S. Kapela                  (516) 755-4299 [Voice, Days]
    ted@polyof.poly.edu	                (516) 473-7746 [FAX]
           "Another brilliant mind corrupted by education"