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From: John.P..Jackson@f20.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (John P. Jackson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: Quantum Spinning Its Platters
Message-ID: <583.2783DE94@busker.fidonet.org>
Date: 30 Dec 90 18:34:50 GMT
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Reply-To: toad@athena.mit.edu

In article <0.mac.hardware@pro-angmar> mhowitt@pro-angmar.UUCP (Matt Howitt)
writes:
>Hi all in netland!
> 
>I have a problem that I have seen mentioned before but I've never seem to have
>gotten an answer.  I have a Quantum 105 Meg HD about 1 year old that I
>purchased from LaCie in a Cirrus configuration.  This drive has a 5 year
>warrantee, so I'm not out of it (yet).
> 
>Anyway, I seem to have a chronic problem.  Sometimes when I access the drive,
>its platters will keep spinning (or some other grinding noise happens, I think
>it is the platters) until I access the drive again.

Well, one thing that this could be, and it's specific to quantum drives, is
a ROM routine that excercises the read/write head mechanism when the drive
senses that the lubricant for this assembley is becoming too viscous.  About
a year and a half ago, many Apple customers began experiencing startup problems
with their hard drives.  The problem was found to be in Quantum drives that
Apple OEM'd.  The drives read/write head mechanism was lubricated with a
grease that became too sticky when it absorbed moisture.  When this happened,
it wouldn't move after the computer had been turned off for a while.  Quantum's
solution to this was to replace the drive's ROM with one that included a
routine that caused the heads to be moved rapidly back and forth from time to
time to insure that the lubricant didn't begin to set.
I would think that they would have corrected this in some other way by now,
but you never know.  I would say that you should definitely get in contact
with whomever you bought the drive from, and ask them about it.  If your
really are hearing a GRINDING sound, then it may be something else.  In any
case, contacting who you got it from will help to CYA if the drive dies a day
out of warranty.  Good luck!

JJ
(-;

 + Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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