Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!brchh104!brchs1!bnr.ca!rice.edu!sun-spots-request
From: eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: Incredible rumor about SPARCstation internal disk lossage
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Message-ID: <3124@brchh104.bnr.ca>
Date: 4 Jun 91 18:40:00 GMT
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Organization: Sunspots, Psuedo-Unmoderated
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Approved: sun-spots@rice.edu
X-Original-Date:    Sat, 11 May 1991 06:42:47 GMT

The problem is called ``stiction'', it's well known in disk circles, and it's
not limited to Sun.  Sometimes you can fix it by briskly rotating the drive by
hand about a quarter turn around a vertical axis, or by patting the drive once
gently (like a baby's bottom, I've been told).  Why does this work?  The rest
of this posting is quoted from Trudy E. Bell, ``Incredible shrinking
computers,'' _IEEE Spectrum_ 28, 5 (May 1991), 37-41; this well-written
article also covers the most likely solution to this problem in future drives,
namely dynamic loading.  Bell writes: