From: ajb8886@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Subject: Re: stiction solved... but wait!
Reply-To: ajb8886@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 13:37:57 GMT

In article <1993Jan19.220618.27146@mksol.dseg.ti.com>, mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>In article <2100@bdrc.bdrc.bd.com> jcl@bdrc.bd.com (John C. Lusth) writes:
>>Yesterday, I asked the net about a Seagate 1102A drive that seemed to
>>be dead.  The consensus wast that the drive was suffering from the
>>infamous "stiction" problem.  I had thought that this was a problem for
>>the older Seagates, but apparently not so.  After an "attitude adjustment",
>>my drive began to spin up and make the familiar noises it used to make.
>>
>>But...  out of the frying pan and into the fire.
>>
>>Now, when attached to my primary PC, the drive spins up when I power
>>on, but immediately I get POST error beeps.  Five to be exact.  In my
>>motherboard manual, this means a CPU error (AMI bios).  When attached
>>to my other PC, the computer does not even attempt the POST.  Both
>>computers work fine without the Seagate attached.  If I attach the
>>drive with the computers already booted up, as soon as I attach the
>>power connector, bad things happen.
>>
>>This is getting more ominous.  What I can't figure out is why the drive
>>would spin up and sound perfectly happy while somehow disrupting the
>>voltages in the rest of the computer.
>>
>>I would appreciate any (more) help on this.
>
>Even though it sounds like it is spinning up, it may not be coming all
>the way up to speed.  Then when the computer does POST, it thinks the
>thing isn't spinning up and hits it with current to start it.  I'm
>currently having this problem with a CDC ESDI drive with around 40,000
>near-continuous hours on it, although my symptoms are somewhat
>different.  On my machine, I power it on, I can heard the drive and
>fans spin up, then when the machine goes to boot it is unable to read
>the hard drive, and you can HEAR the whole machine go 'ungh' when it
>hits the drive with a power surge to spin it up.  Fans slow down and
>everything.  It tries that a couple of times, then comes back with a
>"Hard Drive Failure" message, starts the light on the front of the
>drive flashing briskly, and has to be booted from some other media.


That's a spinup/recalibration failure.  The hard drive shuts down at this point
(when you see the drive light flashing in a regular pattern and no disk
activity, it's almost invariably a "fatal error during spinup").

I had that problem myself with a VERY old (8-9 + years) CDC 40MB (formatted RLL
to 60).  Turns out the problem was a weak/damaged spindle motor controller
board.  Replacing this controller section (the flat card mounted on the rear of
the drive) solved the problem, and it's been running strong without a single
flaw ever since (that was 3 years ago).  I'd originally replaced only the
submini electromechanical relay on the back of that board, but it was only a
temporary solution.  Replacing the spindle controller board was a permanent
solution.

Alex

was 3 years ago).  

>
>I suspect that the bearings have gotten dry (although 40k hours
>doesn't sound like that many) and that it ran ok as long as it was
>warm, but when I shut it down for a week over Thanksgiving it cooled
>off and now isn't spinning quickly enough to be readable.  Perhaps if
>the bearings were warm it would work ok (or perhaps not).  I expect
>I'm going to have to send it in to get the bearings replaced or
>something.  
>
>[Unless, of course, someone else has a better idea.]
>
>-- 
>"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
> in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware