From: Jon Glass (jonglass_at_usa.net)
Date: Sat May 01 2004 - 06:47:44 PDT
on 4/29/04 2:35 PM, MKow1234_at_aol.com at MKow1234_at_aol.com wrote:
> The IT gurus showed me a trick: the hard drive
> would be physically dropped from a height of roughly two or three feet, on to
> a
> counter top! The IT guys explained to me that this could be done once, as a
> last-ditch effort to make the damn thing spin a bit longer. If the hard drive
> did not respond after one drop, then it was time to replace it (usually done
> with a hard drive that was only slightly less decrepit than its predecessor).
That's a bit extreme... There's a better, gentler way... This is a problem
called "stiction." The simpler, gentler way is to hold the drive in your
hand, and violently twist it with a jerk. Kind of like trying to spin the
platters inside from the outside. I don't know if I'm clear or not.... But
in any case, this will get a stuck drive spinning again. I had a drive that
stuck on me a few times and used it for years. I had to give it the twist
about three or four times. I used it as a boot disk and for applications, so
when it died, I didn't lose anything.... But in any case, the twist trick
shouldn't harm the drive in any way, yet should be effective... The real
trick with these drives is that once they display this symptom, you want to
leave them running all the time, and not let them spin down, so the
lubricant can freeze up again, which, as I have been told, is their
problem... I've used this trick with several drives, and had a tech tell me
it was an excellent idea, which he hadn't heard of. :-)
-- Jon Glass Krakow, Poland <jonglass_at_usa.net> "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." --Mark Twain -- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
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