From: Ethan Dicks (ethan.dicks_at_gmail.com)
Date: 2006-07-04 01:13:35
On 7/4/06, B. Degnan <billdeg@degnanco.com> wrote:
> The miniscribe 3650 described in this thread _does_ blink an error after
> attempting to format for a 1/2 hour or so. I was able to reproduce this
> effect again by attempting to format the same drive in an IBM XT last night.
Ah... it's always good to have a known-good testbed for hardware of this age.
> My D9090 does not have the J14 2 pin jumper, it's a soldered wire.
You could remove the wire and replace it with a jumper... should only
take a few moments.
> I also tested my ST-225 - It's bad.
Totally bad? If you have massive bad blocks in the first 153
cylinders, then it's toast. If, however, the errors start after track
153, then the D9060 won't ever address them. Of course, a
non-responsive drive is rather useless except as a donor for another
drive, unless the problem is "stiction". It was common for ST-225 and
ST-251 drives to have the heads adhere to the platters. One method of
breaking them loose was to drop the drive. I've never preferred that
method. I'd rather plug them in on a long lead (at least 12", 36" is
better) and hold the drive on the corners with both hands, oriented
with the platters parallel to the ground and give the drive a
quarter-turn, hard "flick" as I apply power (or have someone else
apply power since my hands are full). One or two of these should bust
the heads loose and the drive will spin up. Once the drive warms up,
the platter lubricant gets thinner and less viscous... the trick is
not to let it cool down or it will probably end up back in its
previous condition.
I would never depend on critical data on such a drive, but for
testing, you should be OK.
-ethan
Message was sent through the cbm-hackers mailing list
Archive generated by hypermail pre-2.1.8.