[comp.sys.amiga] Seagate HD Question

stork@f.gp.cs.cmu.edu (David Zabowski) (07/21/90)

Folks,

Does anybody have any *real* experience with spinning the spindle of a
Seagate hard drive?  I have a 65 meg Seagate that has stopped working.
Power is getting to the drive and I hear a click at the drive when I turn
on the power supply.  However, the drive doesn't spin up.  Any suggestions
on useful debugging techniques for this problem would be appreciated.
Note: I know virtually nothing about hardware so be as explicit as
possible. Please respond by e-mail.  Thanks.

Dave Zabowski
stork@f.gp.cs.cmu.edu
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Hardware:
A1000, 1 meg Insider, Supra 4x4 SCSI Controller, Amiga Color Monitor,
Amiga 1010 External Floppy, Seagate 65 meg Hard Drive.
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ssd@sugar.hackercorp.com (Scott Denham) (07/24/90)

In article <9969@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, stork@f.gp.cs.cmu.edu (David Zabowski) writes:
> Folks,
> Does anybody have any *real* experience with spinning the spindle of a
> Seagate hard drive?  I have a 65 meg Seagate that has stopped working.
> Power is getting to the drive and I hear a click at the drive when I turn
> on the power supply.  However, the drive doesn't spin up.  Any suggestions

 Yeah, I have the dubious honor of being in posession of *TWO* seagates
that exhibit this sort of anti-social behaviour; a 65 meg ST-277N  like
yours and a 49 meg ST-157N.  The 277 is on a BBS that never gets shut
down, so it's not really that big a problem; the smaller drive is on 
a system that's turned on and off, so it's a real *pain*.  Needless to
say I've had to resort to the "bump start" option on numerous occasions
and have observed no ill effects. On the 277N, it's easiest to do by
carefully using a sharp object (like an icepick) to rotate the platter
slightly from the bottom (circuit board) side of the drive. Be careful
not to bend the spindle grounding strap in the middle. Only enough motion
to break the head loose is required.  The 277N has been doing this for
18 months now (although at first it didn't ALWAYS do it - now it does
after any power down over about 10 minutes) but has operated fine
otherwise.  
 
 A question for the net... Is there a solution other than a total rebuild
to get this problem fixed?? The one HD place I talked to wanted about
2/3 the price of a new drive to rebuild one of these, which doesn't really
sound like such a good investment....I'd rather just wait until these
die altogether and then buy another (NON SEAGATE!!!!!!) drive.