Suggestions How to Test No Spin Hard Drives?

[KenO]

Hi,

A while ago put a number of HDDs in storage.

Recently tried to use and noticed that some do Not spin up (all were working when put in storage).

Had read that sometimes the heads will stick or other factors like lube will cause the disk from spinning.

Did some searching and found

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/sci.electronics.repair/how$20test$20no$20spin$20hard$20drives%7Csort:date/sci.electronics.repair/WH68qfkAAfM/51WIPwZL8yMJ

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/sci.electronics.repair/how$20test$20no$20spin$20hard$20drives%7Csort:date/sci.electronics.repair/CDnXwrweST0/6_Sr72pRKUsJ

for specific HDDs but to date No general info on what to test.

Googled using how test "Hard drives" got a lot of hits but nothing helpful to no spin testing to date.

Then decided to try http://www.repairfaq.org and searched with how test "Hard drives" but only got "The Drexel mirror site of the Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ is temporarily unavailable..."

Appreciate any suggestions

Ken

[Sjouke Burry]

I have "repaired"an old DOS computer with a stuck harddisk.
Just gave the case a hard jerk around.
It worked.
Then made a backup............(it was not MY computer).

So give the HD a gentle slam to rotate it and see if it works.
If not slam some more. The disk might wake up.

Do this in off state, then test.

[pf...@aol.com]

Or as my old carpenter foreman used to say:

When in doubt, get a bigger hammer!

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

[tabb...@gmail.com]

This problem was fairly common when HDDs first went down to 3.5" form factor. The standard solution was to plastic bag them and freeze them.

If the head's glued to the disc surface, slamming it's likely to rip the head off. It's a last resort option only.


NT

[pf...@aol.com]

If the alternative is landfill, many alternate means-and-methods open up.

[Ian Field]

<tabb...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:6e1f60bd-8a8c-4afb...@googlegroups.com...

Ripping stuck stuck heads off wasn't very unusual with old drives that had
exposed flywheel on the spindle motor. back in the days of head steppers -
you could sometimes get at that too.

Never tried putting one in the fridge, but it sounds less likely to do
damage - if that doesn't work; resort to violence. Clonking it on the desk
might free it - too little wont free it, too much might shift coating off
the platters. some drives sense failure to spin up and pulse the head servo
to try and free it - careful timing when you clonk it might add that little
bit extra that helps the drive fix itself.

[The Real Bev]

Worst case: give them to the children to disassemble for the magnets.
You need a REALLY tiny Phillips for the last screws.

--
Cheers, Bev
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting
them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for
no good reason. - Jack Handy

[Pat]

I always tried a mechanical fix BUT NOT slamming them down or
hammering on them. Rotate them! If you hold them with your fingers
on the sides and rotate them as quickly as you can, the mass of the
platters tries to keep them stationary while you rotate the case. I
haven't tried that in years since I haven't needed to, but it used to
work.

[Mike_Duffy]

On Wed, 24 Jan 2018 15:20:00 -0500, Pat wrote:

> I always tried a mechanical fix BUT NOT slamming them down or
> hammering on them. Rotate them! If you hold them with your fingers
> on the sides and rotate them as quickly as you can,

Agree. If you want to augment the torque by a few orders of magnitude, get
a flat sanding attachment for a drill and duct tape the disk to the
attachment. You should be able to quite accurately guess the position of
the main axis by looking at the housing; if not find the model# on the web
and look for a service document with a cutaway view.

Presuming your drill is reversable, you can easily alternate the torque
between successive trigger pulls if the drill is clamped. The goal is not
to spin it fast; rather to quickly cause it to reverse direction.

[Dave Platt]

In article <gbqh6dd69pkn29i6i...@4ax.com>,

Pat <p...@nospam.us> wrote:

>I always tried a mechanical fix BUT NOT slamming them down or
>hammering on them. Rotate them! If you hold them with your fingers
>on the sides and rotate them as quickly as you can, the mass of the
>platters tries to keep them stationary while you rotate the case. I
>haven't tried that in years since I haven't needed to, but it used to
>work.

+1 to this. It worked well enough for me, years ago, that I was able
to do some data rescue from a couple of drives which declined to spin
up on their own after sitting idle for a year or two.

[John Robertson]

"Shake & Bake" were the methods used to get stuck drives to spin up in
the 80s. The shake was a twist as described, the bake was to warm the
unit to around 100C to soften the lubes...and then you immediately
sucked the data off and trashed the sick drive.

John :-#)#

--
(Please post followups or tech inquiries to the USENET newsgroup)
John's Jukes Ltd.
MOVED to #7 - 3979 Marine Way, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5J 5E3
(604)872-5757 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
www.flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

[philo]

Had an MFM drive I got to work by standing on end.


If a "jerk" does not do the trick on an ATA drive I've also opened them
up and gentry nudged the arm.

Back up at once as the drive will not function long

[Clifford Heath]

Around 1992 we had to do that (after each power failure) on
a Fujitsu Eagle hard drive. Pretty difficult; it took two
strong people to coordinate a twist on a 60kg drive without
dropping it.

[whit3rd]

On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 9:18:36 AM UTC-8, KenO wrote:

> A while ago put a number of HDDs in storage.
>
> Recently tried to use and noticed that some do Not spin up (all were working when put in storage).
>
> Had read that sometimes the heads will stick or other factors like lube will cause the disk from spinning.

Yes, motor power is sometimes a problem: first thing to do is listen very hard. If it IS
spinning, don't hit it...
but if it isn't, the motor control will shut down a second after power is applied, so what
you want to do is give the drive a brisk twist just after applying power. Set the drive
on a horizontal surface, flip on power and quickly rap one corner so as to make the
drive twist position slightly... try both directions. You must switch the power off
and wait a few seconds between each trial. Give it a dozen tries (use a stick,
no sense getting bruised).

Apply heat (hair dryer is fine) to warm the case, wait a few minutes, and try again. You just
want the aluminum parts warm so the lubricant softens.

If that doesn't work, examine the drive electronics, sometimes it's just
a shorted diode on the power pins. And, sometimes there's a scorched odor
and a crater in one of the black plastic rectangles...

[tabb...@gmail.com]

how many platters did that have??
Even the original 2' wide rusty platter stack didn't come in at 60kg iirc.


NT

[tabb...@gmail.com]

11x 10.5" platters, 4k rpm, 30 second spin-up time.


NT

[Clifford Heath]

> 11x 10.5" platters, 4k rpm, 30 second spin-up time.

I never weighed one, just took a guess. It was a difficult thing
to lift and apply power then a rapid rotational jerk to however.
Then gently lift it back into the rack to avoid crashing anything.
540MB if I recall - I don't even have a thumb drive that small any
more.

[jack...@gmail.com]

Il giorno mercoledì 24 gennaio 2018 18:18:36 UTC+1, KenO ha scritto:
> Hi,
>
> A while ago put a number of HDDs in storage.
>
> Recently tried to use and noticed that some do Not spin up (all were working when put in storage).
>
> Had read that sometimes the heads will stick or other factors like lube will cause the disk from spinning.

when the disk is powered off the heads are parked, and if the heads touch the platters then you can throw the HD in the trash.

If it doesn't spin up it's because the bearings of the motor are stuck. A gentle but firm poke on the side of the disk should help. Also putting the HD in vertical instead of horizontal position when it power up may help. Or shaking it a little.

Bye Jack

[Rick]

"John Robertson" <sp...@flippers.com> wrote in message
news:mZidnWkj6PCjhvTH...@giganews.com...

http://www.alps.com/prod/info/E/PDF/Potentiometer/TAPER.pdf

[tabb...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, 25 January 2018 09:45:34 UTC, Clifford Heath wrote:

sounds like an improvement on:
1956 IBM 350. fifty 24-inch (0.6 m) platters, total capacity (3.75 megabytes).


NT

[jf...@my-deja.com]

On Thursday, January 25, 2018 at 3:31:54 AM UTC-8, tabb...@gmail.com wrote:
> 1956 IBM 350. fifty 24-inch (0.6 m) platters, total capacity (3.75 megabytes).
>
> NT

More precisely, 5,000,000 Hollerith characters (the ones available on an IBM punch card). Each character was encoded using six bits. Since there were only 48 symbols defined, not all 64 of the six-bit combinations were possible.

[tabb...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, 25 January 2018 14:52:41 UTC, jf...@my-deja.com wrote:

> On Thursday, January 25, 2018 at 3:31:54 AM UTC-8, tabby wrote:
> > 1956 IBM 350. fifty 24-inch (0.6 m) platters, total capacity (3.75 megabytes).
> >
> > NT
>
> More precisely, 5,000,000 Hollerith characters (the ones available on an IBM punch card). Each character was encoded using six bits. Since there were only 48 symbols defined, not all 64 of the six-bit combinations were possible.

I sure am grateful that computing has improved. Funny that such a HDD was the latest & greatest thing at the time.


NT

[Jon Elson]

jack...@gmail.com wrote:

> Il giorno mercoledì 24 gennaio 2018 18:18:36 UTC+1, KenO ha scritto:
>> Hi,
>>
>> A while ago put a number of HDDs in storage.
>>
>> Recently tried to use and noticed that some do Not spin up (all were
>> working when put in storage).
>>
>> Had read that sometimes the heads will stick or other factors like lube
>> will cause the disk from spinning.
>
> when the disk is powered off the heads are parked, and if the heads touch
> the platters then you can throw the HD in the trash.

No fixed disk made since 1980 has had the heads lift off the platter.
Certainly, no modern 8", 5", 3" or whatever "Winchester" disk lifts the
heads. The heads are SUPER-smooth, and there is a lubricating film on the
platters that allows the heads to land on them without damage. (They may
have a dedicated landing area with no data written there.)

Jon

[Mike Coon]

In article <bd8b72ee-2cce-4d75...@googlegroups.com>,
tabb...@gmail.com says...

>
> I sure am grateful that computing has improved. Funny that such a HDD was the latest & greatest thing at the time.
>

My favourite when I worked for Univac was the FastRand (Remington Rand
vs Random; geddit?). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_FASTRAND

Pity no photo there -
https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/univac/fastrand.html

They were amazing beasts; quote: "No UNIVAC programmer who ever
encountered a FASTRAND is likely to forget it."

Mike.

[jack...@gmail.com]

No.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_read-and-write_head
Paragraph "Description"

When the HD is powered off, the heads are "parked" outside of the platters.

Bye Jack

[jack...@gmail.com]

Here more pictures (and explanations):

http://www.data-master.com/HeadCrash-explain-hard-disk-drive-fail_Q18.html

Bye Jack

[tabb...@gmail.com]

I read about some laptop HDDs taking the head off-platter during the noughties to improve shock survival.


NT

[tabb...@gmail.com]

On Friday, 26 January 2018 10:10:36 UTC, Mike Coon wrote:
> In article <bd8b72ee-2cce-4d75...@googlegroups.com>,
> tabbypurr says...

> >
> > I sure am grateful that computing has improved. Funny that such a HDD was the latest & greatest thing at the time.
> >
>
> My favourite when I worked for Univac was the FastRand (Remington Rand
> vs Random; geddit?). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_FASTRAND
>
> Pity no photo there -
> https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/univac/fastrand.html
>
> They were amazing beasts; quote: "No UNIVAC programmer who ever
> encountered a FASTRAND is likely to forget it."
>
> Mike.

"There were reported cases of drum bearing failures that caused the machine to tear itself apart and send the heavy drum crashing through walls."


NT

[jurb...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 12:18:36 PM UTC-5, KenO wrote:
> Hi,
>
> A while ago put a number of HDDs in storage.
>
> Recently tried to use and noticed that some do Not spin up (all were working when put in storage).
>
> Had read that sometimes the heads will stick or other factors like lube will cause the disk from spinning.
>

> Did some searching and found
>
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/sci.electronics.repair/how$20test$20no$20spin$20hard$20drives%7Csort:date/sci.electronics.repair/WH68qfkAAfM/51WIPwZL8yMJ
>
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/sci.electronics.repair/how$20test$20no$20spin$20hard$20drives%7Csort:date/sci.electronics.repair/CDnXwrweST0/6_Sr72pRKUsJ
>
> for specific HDDs but to date No general info on what to test.
>
> Googled using how test "Hard drives" got a lot of hits but nothing helpful to no spin testing to date.
>
> Then decided to try http://www.repairfaq.org and searched with how test "Hard drives" but only got "The Drexel mirror site of the Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ is temporarily unavailable..."
>
> Appreciate any suggestions
>
> Ken

Grab it by the end by the connectors and smack the SIDE of the drive in the direction to force rotation. You don't want to pull the heads off if they're only lightly stuck.

Also, sometimes when the bearings are that tight they seize up. This used to happen to the drum motor on VCRs sometimes.

But then before you smack anything try cold and heat of course. Heatwise it can stand up to maybe 140C or so. That would loosen up the grease and many ovens go that low. And sometimes, for reasons I haven't quite figured out completely, cold works. They can stand being in the freezer.

Once it spins, copy everything worth a shit on it of course. You might only get one chance.

[KenO]

Thanks everyone for all your suggestions.

Forgot to mention that all the HDDs were stored in cool (not freezing) conditions.

Will try some heat tests 1st.

Ken

[Dave Platt]

In article <3682e290-5027-493f...@googlegroups.com>,

<tabb...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> They were amazing beasts; quote: "No UNIVAC programmer who ever
>> encountered a FASTRAND is likely to forget it."
>>
>> Mike.
>
>"There were reported cases of drum bearing failures that caused the machine to tear itself apart and send the
>heavy drum crashing through walls."

While in high school (roughly 1970) I did some summer work at the
district's Instructional Computer Center, coding some graphics-based
teaching software which ran on the district's Philco 102 mainframe.
It had huge disk drives, of the sort where the platter assemblies were
dropped into the drive-and-heads chassis through an openable lid (no
sealed drive assembly).

The story went that one evening, the techs were doing some maintenance
on the system, and had one drive's cover opened while the drive was
still powered up and spinning. Something happened (allegedly one of
the techs was a cigar smoker(!) and a chunk of ash fell off his cigar
and was sucked into the drive), something seized up, and the whole
platter assembly snapped out of the drive and flew across the room and
hit a door frame. Fortunately nobody was in the way and there were no
injuries.

I don't know if this _truly_ occurred but it was a good cautionary
tale, warning that (1) working on high-power rotating assemblies
without safety covers was a bad idea, and (2) smoking tobacco could be
bad for your health.

I have no reason to believe that this incident was the inspiration
behind the movie "Master of the Flying Guillotine"... damn it. It
really should have been.

[Mike Coon]

In article <u7tsje-...@coop.radagast.org>, dpl...@coop.radagast.org
says...

>
> I don't know if this _truly_ occurred but it was a good cautionary
> tale, warning that (1) working on high-power rotating assemblies
> without safety covers was a bad idea, and (2) smoking tobacco could be
> bad for your health.
>
> I have no reason to believe that this incident was the inspiration
> behind the movie "Master of the Flying Guillotine"... damn it. It
> really should have been.

Or of the Bond movie's OddJob?

Mike.