cs161afu@sdcc18.ucsd.EDU (Sledge Hammer) (12/24/87)
Does anybody know if standing an AT (with a seagate st225 hard disk) on its side causes any damage. Somebody talked about gravity pulling the disk heads of a floppy drive. Does that apply here? Thanks for info. Rick Moy email please.
john@wa3wbu.UUCP (John Gayman) (12/25/87)
In article <845@sdcc18.ucsd.EDU>, cs161afu@sdcc18.ucsd.EDU (Sledge Hammer) writes: > Does anybody know if standing an AT (with a seagate st225 hard disk) > on its side causes any damage. Somebody talked about gravity > pulling the disk heads of a floppy drive. Does that apply here? It is absolutely normal to mount ANY type PC on its side (unless of course you keep your Goldfish on top). Many of the "tower" type machines have used the hard & floppy disks mounted on their sides since the beginning (the NCR Tower being one). I know the Unisys B20 series of micros have both the ST-225 & floppy drive on their side. The past argument seems to be that it may be possible for the heads to settle in a slightly different position on a horizontal vs vertical hard disk. I havnt actually tested for this condition but I guess it may be possible with the "stepper motor" type drives like the ST-225. Any of the fast disks that use the voice-coil head positioner usually have a servo-track that actually does the positioning and thus the above shouldnt occur. To be absolutely SAFE, and get respect from both camps :-), before mounting your machine on its side, do a backup. Then after mounting vertically, format your disk and restore. Face it, a backup/restore probably couldnt hurt anyway since its probably been a while. :-) I hope this info helps. John -- John Gayman, WA3WBU | UUCP: uunet!wa3wbu!john 1869 Valley Rd. | ARPA: wa3wbu!john@uunet.UU.NET Marysville, PA 17053 | Packet: WA3WBU @ AK3P