keithe@tekgvs.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson) (06/17/88)
In article <8839@dhw68k.cts.com> rob@dhw68k.cts.com (Robert Kenyon) writes: >I have had a much worse time with miniscribe 20Ms. I have had to have >two of the five I have run into, fixed. We bought 14 Miniscribe 3053's last October; one was d.o.a. and I'm in the process now of returning two for repair (one of the two has almost NO running time on it. I'll wait a while before I buy any more 3053's. Has anyone had any better luck? It's too bad 'cuz they're neat, half-height 40 Megabytes and really fast access times. keith
davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) (06/18/88)
The ST251 is a 42MB half height. I have accumulated one year each on two
of these drives, and have had zero problems. If the 38ms seek is too
slow there is a 251-1 model with 28ms seek. If I were buying again I'd
get it. It's plated media, and RLL controller makers have said it works
with their drives. I'm waititng for time to try.
--
bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
{uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -mejapplega@csm9a.UUCP (Joe Applegate) (06/21/88)
In article <3594@tekgvs.TEK.COM>, keithe@tekgvs.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson) writes: > In article <8839@dhw68k.cts.com> rob@dhw68k.cts.com (Robert Kenyon) writes: > > >I have had a much worse time with miniscribe 20Ms. I have had to have > >two of the five I have run into, fixed. > > We bought 14 Miniscribe 3053's last October; one was d.o.a. and I'm > in the process now of returning two for repair (one of the two has > almost NO running time on it. > > I'll wait a while before I buy any more 3053's. Has anyone had any > better luck? It's too bad 'cuz they're neat, half-height 40 > Megabytes and really fast access times. > > keith I used to have very bad luck with all of our MiniScribe drives... they had a high degree of failure with the only diagnostic being a flashing led... After returning several for replacement/repair and being stuck with several out of warantee drives, my 20 meg. MiniScribe at home died! After several calls to a freind who used to work for them I found that All Miniscribe drives are prone to "stick" when trying to start their motor! This can be remedied by removing the drive and torquing it in the direction of platter motion. Since dicovering this my home unit has failed 3 times and I have been able to restart it with this manuever. I have also used this sucessfully on over 20 systems on campus... with various models of MiniScribe drives! They really should install a crank on them!!! I have yet to find a MiniScribe that this would not fix... and I have yet to find another type of drive that this would fix! Joe Applegate - Colorado School of Mines Computing Center {seismo, hplabs}!hao!isis!csm9a!japplega or SYSOP @ M.O.M. AI BBS - (303) 273-3989 - 300/1200/2400 8-N-1 24 hrs. *** UNIX is a philosophy, not an operating system *** *** BUT it is a registered trademark of AT&T, so get off my back ***
stevel@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Steve Ligett) (06/24/88)
In article <743@csm9a.UUCP> japplega@csm9a.UUCP (Joe Applegate) writes: >In article <3594@tekgvs.TEK.COM>, keithe@tekgvs.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson) writes: >> In article <8839@dhw68k.cts.com> rob@dhw68k.cts.com (Robert Kenyon) writes: >> (much about drive failures deleted) >After several calls to a freind who used to work for them I found that >All Miniscribe drives are prone to "stick" when trying to start their >motor! This can be remedied by removing the drive and torquing it in the >direction of platter motion. ... > > Joe Applegate - Colorado School of Mines Computing Center > {seismo, hplabs}!hao!isis!csm9a!japplega I saw this happen with the ST-506s (modified, of course) that Apple used with the Lisa. Someone told me that the heads burnish the platters, and that they stick together when they stop. Much like gage blocks. The spindle motor can't break them loose. With the ST-506, you can poke a screwdriver in to turn the motor shaft. I don't know if the explanation was correct, but the cure worked. Steve Ligett steve.ligett@dartmouth.edu or (decvax harvard ihnp4 linus)!dartvax!steve.ligett