[comp.sys.next] Help! NeXT OD crash?!

wad41076@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Will Day) (11/05/90)

    Please help me!  The NeXT seems to have 'crunch'ed my OD just a  
bit too hard, and now it says it needs to be initialized!  Is there  
any way to recover any of the data on the disk?  

   These are the exact circumstances: I inserted my OD in the drive,  
and it sounded like it was proceeding to automount it.  Actually, it  
sounded just a little different - there seemed to be a few very high  
tones present with the normal 'crunching' sound.  However, it did not  
mount it.  Instead, it spit it back out, with no message whatsoever.   
I promptly put it back in, at which point the NeXT dutifully informed  
me that the disk needed to be initialized!

    I have no idea what could have caused it to do this - I've heard  
dust is a problem.  Would <wince> cleaning the disk help any?  Is it  
perhaps the OD drive?  (This is an original NeXT, and I don't think  
it's _ever_ been cleaned, or indeed serviced at all.  It doesn't look  
like it.)  I can't try the disk in another machine, as I don't know  
of any others with hard drives (ie they have to boot off an OD).  

    At the moment, I can't see myself re-initializing it.  In fact,  
I'd probably just let it sit on a shelf for a year as it is, before I  
reformat it and permanently lose all the data.  I've only had it for  
about a month - are they really this unstable?  What's the point in  
reformatting it and putting data on it again, if I'm just going to  
lose it again?

Thanks in advance,
Will Day

wad41076@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu.
willday@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu.
day@sumter.cso.uiuc.edu. <--- That's the SOB that wants to format it!