(Yet another reason) Why I Hate Windows

[Jay Nugent]

Greetings,

On Fri, 21 Sep 2007, vu pham wrote:

> On Fri, 2007-09-21 at 15:53 -0700, Tony Alfrey wrote:
> > Rick Bowers wrote:
> > <snip>
> > > I left that company (not by choice) and stored the drive. Two years 
> > > later, the assets of that company were acquired and I went to work for 
> > > the new company.  None of the old stuff had been transferred over (or, 
> > > apparently, preserved) so I took out my backup. It won't spin up. 
> > > Period.

   Often times when a hard drive sits still for a long time the heads
become stuck to the landing zone surface of the disk platter, which is
nearer the center of the platter to limit surface feet travelled per RPM
when the heads "land".  The motor doesn't have enough strength to spin up
when the heads are acting like brake pads, so we need to make that
"sticktion" break free.

   An old trick was to place the drive in the freezer for several hours
until it is thoroughly frozen.  Might wanna put it in a zip lock bag to
limit exposure to condensation, but I've never bothered.  The idea here is
that the coefficint of expansion for the head material and the platter
material are different.  A small 'crack' will occur when one material
expands (or contracts) different from the other, thus releasing the
sticktion.

   Remove the drive from the freezer and quickly hook it to the computer
before it unthaws.  Don't bother mounting it in the case, just hook up the
power and interface cables.  Apply power and with luck the spindle will 
spin up for you :)

   Be aware that because the disk is very cold the heads *may* not 
properly line up with the data tracks on the platter.  Keep trying to read 
the data until it can be read without errors.

   I have done this sucessfully many times with VERY OLD drives from my
early CP/M and DOS days.  Even done it with old Apple Macs, too.

   Gook luck, and let us know how it works out.

      --- Jay
             
"Getting rid of terrorism is like getting rid of dandruff.  It cannot
 be done completely no matter how hard you try." -- Gore Vidal
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