arens@vaxa.isi.edu (Yigal Arens) (08/15/89)
When I turn my machine on, the hard disk won't spin. This is the original 20MB disk that came with the machine. This happened a couple of times before and was remedied by turning the power off and then on again or by banging on the machine (sorry...). This time nothing helps. I'm told there were once instructions posted here about how one could oil the shaft, or something, to get the disk to spin again. I'd appreciate it if someone who has such instructions around would mail them to me. Thanks, Yigal Arens USC/ISI arens@isi.edu
rouilj@umb.umb.edu (John P. Rouillard) (08/17/89)
This is additional information to the article:
AT&T Unix-PC Hard Disk error **HELP** References: <880@umb.umb.edu>
dd@umb.umb.edu had a disk with a bad bearing. He swapped the driver
boards on the disks. His disk with the bad bearing worked. i.e. the
driver boards were ok. Next he tackled the disk itself. He tried to
spin the shaft clockwise by hand. The shaft was jammed. Then he
tried spinning it counter-clockwise. This freed it and it seems to be
working fine now.
I would still like to know what caused the problem in the first place
and I would like to get instruction on the care and feeding of the
hard disk to prevent this from happening in the future.
aTdHvAaNnKcSe
=== The opinions expressed above are all mine and belong to nobody else. ===
John Rouillard U-Mass Boston rouilj@umb.umb.edu
Physics Major Harbor Campus husc6!umb!rouilj
Boston, MA 02125 rouilj%umb.edu@RELAY.CS.NET
--
=== The opinions expressed above are all mine and belong to nobody else. ===
John Rouillard U-Mass Boston rouilj@umb.umb.edu
Physics Major Harbor Campus husc6!umb!rouilj
Physics Department Boston, MA 02125 rouilj%umb.edu@RELAY.CS.NETthad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) (08/20/89)
A lot of the "my disk don't spin" (sic :-) problems are caused by a manufacturing defect resulting in "stiction". Essentially what is happening is the head assembly is being held to the platter(s) preventing main spindle rotation (due to safety interlocks). Often just twisting the stepper motor shaft a wee bit will "break" the stiction and permit one to power- and spin-up the drive. Once you do this, backup your data ASAP and start looking for a new hard drive (or have your present one re-plattered). Without wishing to get into a long-winded discussion about the problem, I'll keep this short and state the problem is caused by either over- or under-lubrication of the platters. If there's INTEREST (determined by more than, say, 10 emails), I can summarize and post all the gory technical details as have been recently hashed-out in another newsgroup. Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]
madcat@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (Marty Donaldson) (08/22/89)
From article <21443@cup.portal.com>, by thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan): > A lot of the "my disk don't spin" (sic :-) problems are caused by a > ............. Often just twisting the > stepper motor shaft a wee bit will "break" the stiction and permit one to > power- and spin-up the drive. > I've had this problem with my second hd. Moving the stepper motor shaft has always worked, but it's not convenient. I have since made it a practice to always boot the diag. floppy and park the heads after I do a "shutdown". It has not failed me yet. Marty