Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpda!hpcuhb!hp-ses!hpccc!samc From: samc@hpccc.HP.COM (Samuel Chau) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Seagate ST-251-1 heads banging? Message-ID: <5060049@hpccc.HP.COM> Date: 2 Feb 89 19:12:24 GMT Organization: HP Corporate Computing Center Lines: 33 I have a pair of Seagate ST-251-1 40MB drives (less than a year old) and have been experiencing what I would call a "head banging" problem. The drives make loud "clunk clunk" sounds just before they are accessed at boot time. Entering disk partitioning software such as PARTED of SpeedStor also triggers the sounds. This effect has appeared with the Seagates working with a number of hard disk controllers including the Western Digital WD1006-WAH, Adaptec ACB2372A, and the Perstor PS180-16F, and on machines including a 8MHz Vectra and a 20MHz 386 system with an AMI BIOS (dated 1/13/88). I know I'm not supposed to use the ST-251-1's with non-MFM encoding schemes, but the drives have worked successfully with just about every controller I've tried, and in every case the clunking sounds were present. The drives have shown virtually no signs of deterioration, and have been working perfectly for over six months now, but the sounds still worry me. I have heard a rumor that Seagate might have removed an IR sensor from the ST-251-1 units so as to save manufacturing cost. Could this be impairing the ability of the heads to re-seek to track 0? Or is it that because of the lack of feedback from the sensor, the heads are being stepped in an open-looped fashion so they eventually bump against the stopper to make the sound? Does anyone have similar experiences? Any light shed on the subject will be highly appreciated. Sam Chau HP Cupertino samc@hpda (408) 447-0238 #include