Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!fox!portal!cup.portal.com!thad From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) Newsgroups: unix-pc.general Subject: Re: dead disk? Message-ID: <25022@cup.portal.com> Date: 14 Dec 89 10:59:28 GMT References: <12154@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> Organization: The Portal System (TM) Lines: 30 joi@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (joy.m.metcalf) in <12154@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> writes: Last night I shut down my 7300. This morning it won't boot. After watching it make little patterns in a row on the screen again and again, I inserted the diagnostic floppy. It said it couldn't read anything on the hard disk-- oh, yeah, first it automatically asked if I wanted to reconfigure my hard disk, then I told it to run diagnostics on the hard disk. This sounds like a classic case of the ol' stiction problem, where the heads won't leave PARK position and the drive won't spin up. I've over 10MB of notes, emails, postings, etc. I've posted over the years to multiple newsgroups over the years concerning the problem. Assuming your power supply IS supplying a "good" +12VDC to the drive, the usual solution is to access the underside of the hard drive (meaning you open your system and pull out the HD), locate the stepper motor shaft (which is usually located off to one side (contrasted with the main drive spindle shaft which is typically in the center of the underside of the drive)), place your finger on the shaft and twist back and forth a wee bit ... this "breaks" the stiction and permits the drive to power up. Once your drive is up and running, backup all your files and locate another drive to replace the present one (whose problem WILL get worse). The stiction symtom is one of overlubrication of the platters during manufacturing, and the only other solution besides total replacement of the drive is to re-platter your existing drive ... this is often NOT cost-effective for drives under, say, 80 MB. Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]