Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!wayner
From: wayner@CS.Cornell.EDU (Peter Wayner)
Subject: One way to Fix Broken Sony 40mb Hard Drives...
Message-ID: <1991May7.164219.22051@cs.cornell.edu>
Sender: news@cs.cornell.edu (USENET news user)
Nntp-Posting-Host: kama.cs.cornell.edu
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853
Date: Tue, 7 May 1991 16:42:19 GMT
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The symptoms:

Four days ago, I turned on my Mac IIci and nothing happened. 
A mouse pointer appeared, the drive light came on, but there 
was no happy mac. After about a minute, a disk light came on
asking for a floppy. I could boot up a Norton Emergency Disk,
but this software couldn't find the disk on the SCSI port. The 
computer seemed to be fine, it just got a bit lost whenever
it tried to find the internal hard drive on the SCSI bus. 

My warranty:

I bought this drive from Apple in December 1989. It is well
out of warranty. 

The problem:

It turned out that the head was "stuck" to the platter and 
the motor didn't have enough torque to unstick it. Apparantly
the drive grease gets gummed up or something. This was a 
problem with 40 meg Quantum drives and it now seems to be
a problem with Sonys. (I remember being happy not to get
a Quantum when I picked up the machine a year and a half
ago. :-)

The solution:

Try this if you feel brave, your machine is out of warranty and you've
got NOTHING TO LOSE.  You might want to try it even if the disk is
still under warranty, the symptoms are the same, but the dealer
tells you the data is GONE. I, myself, make no warranty about its
usefulness. It just worked for me.

0) Keep yourself grounded. Static electricity kills components.  

1) Open up the case.

2) Take out the hard disk. Disconnect the cables and make a note about
how they connect. The sockets are idiot-proofed, but you might want to
make sure.

3) Unscrew the mounting bracket. Now you can see the circuit board
completely.

4) There are three screws that hold the board down. Unscrew them. Note
that one handling ground is a slightly different length and another
one has a lock washer. 

5) Now the board is held down by several ribbon connectors and
a wire or two. If you can get your finger underneith the board,
find the large wheel. If you can't, undo the ribbon connectors. I
was forced to do this and it is slightly tricky getting them 
back together. It is hard to tell when they are mated correctly. 

6) Turn the wheel around. This is connected to the disk inside. When I
did this, I felt resistence at first, then ease and then resistence
when I had made one full rotation bringing the head back to the gummy
grease. After several turns, the grease was well-spread out and the
resistance was gone. 

7) Put it back together. 

8) Buy a new drive. Prefererably one with a two-year warranty.

9) Reconsider the wisdom of perpetual backups or disk mirroring.

10) Mine booted fine. I'm considering leaving it on the system
to see how long it lasts. Just for the sake of science.


-- 
Peter Wayner   Department of Computer Science Cornell Univ. Ithaca, NY 14850
EMail:wayner@cs.cornell.edu    Office: 607-255-9202 or 255-1008
Home: 116 Oak Ave, Ithaca, NY 14850  Phone: 607-277-6678