ebh@argon.UUCP (Ed Horch) (10/31/88)
In article <1311@plx.UUCP> walt@plx.UUCP (Walt Novinger ) writes: >My 7300's 40MB Seagate ST251 hard disk suddenly went south the other day, >and I have to get the data off it, if possible. I tried running the >diagnostics disk to test the drive, and it fails on the "recal" test. The disk may be fine. Early in argon's career, the same "can't recal" message made me think I had lost my drive. Two drives and mother- boards and a month in the shop later, I suggested to the technician that there may be a power supply problem, since the disk never died during operation, only on power-up or power-down. A new power supply, and the whole thing's been running fine for over a year. In any case, don't toss your ST-251 in the scrap heap yet! -Ed
cdold@starfish.Convergent.COM (Clarence Dold) (11/02/88)
From article <335@argon.UUCP>, by ebh@argon.UUCP (Ed Horch): > In article <1311@plx.UUCP> walt@plx.UUCP (Walt Novinger ) writes: >>My 7300's 40MB Seagate ST251 hard disk suddenly went south the other day, >>and I have to get the data off it, if possible. I tried running the >>diagnostics disk to test the drive, and it fails on the "recal" test. > > The disk may be fine. Early in argon's career, the same "can't recal" > message made me think I had lost my drive. Two drives and mother- Another possibility is that block zero is gone. The 7300 reads block zero to get the physical attributes of the drive, placed there by iv. This is how you can change drive types without reconfiguring any tables; the table is on the drive. Unfortunately, the loss of one block means that the drive is inaccessible. If you can 'force' a write of a valid VHB to block zero, you might recover the drive. Convergent's new machines have an 'iv -o' option just for this purpose. Disclaimer: I don't with the 7300 officially. I am basing this on similarities with our other machines. -- Clarence A Dold - cdold@starfish.Convergent.COM (408) 435-5274 ...pyramid!ctnews!professo!dold MailStop 09-031 P.O.Box 6685, San Jose, CA 95150-6685 -- Clarence A Dold - cdold@starfish.Convergent.COM (408) 435-5274 ...pyramid!ctnews!professo!dold MailStop 09-031 P.O.Box 6685, San Jose, CA 95150-6685
thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) (11/02/88)
The following two items weren't cross-posted to unix-pc.general; I've included them for their technical and entertainment value. ==================== From: jbm@uncle.UUCP (John B. Milton) Newsgroups: comp.sys.att Subject: Re: HELP with 7300 hard disk PLEASE Date: 1 Nov 88 05:02:51 GMT Organization: Just me and my computer, Columbus Ohio Lines: 35 Keywords: dead disk 7300 help In article <1311@plx.UUCP> walt@plx.UUCP (Walt Novinger ) writes: >My 7300's 40MB Seagate ST251 hard disk suddenly went south the other day, >and I have to get the data off it, if possible. I tried running the >diagnostics disk to test the drive, and it fails on the "recal" test. Are you absolutely sure it's spinning up? I have heard of drives where the baking mechanism stickes to the spindle on shutdown and the next time you power it up, it won't spin up. If it won't spin up, it won't try to move the heads. One solution was dropthe fron of the machine about 6" to jar it loose. I don't think I would recomend that. If it is spinning up, then the lack of recal could be several problems. Bad logic board on the drive. You should be able to get that board replaced and still get the data. BE WARNED if you try to send a drive back for service, even if you mark it to keep the drive part, they will most likely scrap it. The best solution is to get another drive of the same type, a spline head tool and swap the board yourself. The other thing keeping it from recaling might be soft. The diagnostic disk won't tell you the difference between 1. can't move the head to track 0, 2. can't get a track header on the lowest track, and 3. drive is missing the drive magic number. It could be that a tiny glitch has dinged the VHB (Volume Home Block). The bad news is that there isn't much in the way of low level utilities on the UNIXpc to go patching around with. The interactive device test is supposed to almost allow some of this, but it won't work for hard disks, only floppies. My suggestion if you want to see what's REALLY on the disk right now, is to put it on a PClone and get ahold of one of those super fantanstic hard drive programs that are out now. One of those should be able to show you more than you want to know and, at least tell you whether it's a hardware or magware problem. John -- John Bly Milton IV, jbm@uncle.UUCP, n8emr!uncle!jbm@osu-cis.cis.ohio-state.edu (614) h:294-4823, w:764-4272; MS-DOS is a beautiful flower that smells bad! ==================== From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) Newsgroups: comp.sys.att Subject: Re: HELP with 7300 hard disk PLEASE Date: 1 Nov 88 09:43:22 GMT Lines: 66 Walt Novinger is having problems with his Seagate ST251 ... Welcome to the club. But, one question: does the drive SPIN? Don't laugh. I have a bunch of ST251 drives that do NOT spin up consistently and the first time that happened I started sweating icicles. My first thought was a "bad" controller card (the one that is bolted to the back of the drives), and I called Seagate Customer Support (in Florida; figure that one out) and discovered that all Seagate does is exchange drives. Not very useful if you want to retrieve data that hasn't been backed up (let THAT be a lesson!). Finally, persevered and managed to reach the Manager of QA at Seagate in Scotts Valley, CA, and was told essentially the same story: they don't repair drives, wouldn't send me a PC card, and they don't have spare parts. By this time, I had already discovered the drive wasn't spinning up. Being the curious sort, I started examining all aspects of the drive. Poked here, prodded there, uttered a few choice epithets, and was seriously considering the sure-fire-cure: dancing under a full moon in my Jockey shorts while swinging a dead chicken over my head! :-) Well, to make a long story short: I started idly twisting the stepper motor shaft using an Allen wrench, about 15 degrees each way. Decided to attempt to power up the drive one more time before chucking it out the window and over the fence when, LO!, whi-r-r-r-r-r-r. It SPUN! Twisted the shaft of another one, powered it up, and it, too, spun. Whew! Did I back up those disks quickly. First thing next morning, called Seagate (Scotts Valley) QA Manager and discussed my findings. An engineer was consulted and confirmed that the ST251 drive has "failsafes" to prevent main spindle rotation IF the arms don't come out of `park' during the power up sequence. My "twisting" the stepper motor shaft a bit must have loosened up whatever it was that prevented the arms coming out of park. Don't know what, since the drives are normally powered 24 hrs/day, 7 days/week, and they were off for only a few hours while I was experimenting with other aspects of the system. NOW: the interesting thing is, ALL of my ST251 have the same date code: 8707 (a big number stamped alongside the frame). But I've heard in other newsgroups of others having problems with the ST251 also, and the solution was the same "fix." BE FORWARNED: the "fix" is only temporary. The ones I still have continue to exhibit the problem occasionally upon power up. Once the drives are spinning, they operate fine. But I'm really disappointed about these problems and have switched almost exclusively now to other manufacturers (e.g. Maxtor) though I am having excellent performance from an ST157N. As near as I can determine, the problem ONLY exists with the ST251-0 (the "-0" is often identified by an "MLC-0" sticker); the ST251-1 (also MLC-1) drives don't (yet) appear to have such a problem (but perhaps it's too early for the problem to surface). For reference: the MLC-0 drives are the 39mS ones and the MLC-1 drives are the 28mS ones. SUMMARY: twist the stepper motor shaft a wee bit using a dowel, screwdriver, Allen wrench, whatever), power up the drive and get your data off it ASAP. As mine have shown, the drives will continue to present problems, so I'd suggest looking for a replacement HD before yours fails totally. Thad Floryan [thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ...!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad]
darren@bacchus.UUCP (Darren Friedlein) (11/04/88)
In article <792@starfish.Convergent.COM> cdold@starfish.Convergent.COM (Clarence Dold) writes: >Another possibility is that block zero is gone. >The 7300 reads block zero to get the physical attributes of the drive, >placed there by iv. This is how you can change drive types without >reconfiguring any tables; the table is on the drive. Unfortunately, >the loss of one block means that the drive is inaccessible. > >If you can 'force' a write of a valid VHB to block zero, you might recover >the drive. >Convergent's new machines have an 'iv -o' option just for this purpose. > It's possible that this can be done in "s4test" mode of the diagnostics, but you can also use the "Hard Drive Boot Disk" supplied with your foundation set. Get in and back everything off - then try a low-level format. -darren ____ / \ | Rt 4, Box 416, Durham, NC 27703 _____|_____ Darren G. Friedlein data (bacchus) : 919/596-7746 / | \ voice : 919/596-9492 ( | ) \____/ __/ {mcnc|icus|ditka|ethos|gladys|bakerst}!bacchus!darren