Suggestions How to Test No Spin Hard Drives?

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

$20test$20no$20spin$20hard$20drives%7Csort:date/sci.electronics.repair/WH68qfkAAfM/51WIPwZL8yMJ

$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

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

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.

Or as my old carpenter foreman used to say:

When in doubt, get a bigger hammer!

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

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

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

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

+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.

"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 :-#)#

--
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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

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...

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

NT

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

NT

ing when put in storage).

ill cause the disk from spinning.

when the disk is powered off the heads are parked, and if the heads touch t he 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 g entle but firm poke on the side of the disk should help. Also putting the H D in vertical instead of horizontal position when it power up may help. Or shaking it a little.

Bye Jack

sounds like an improvement on:

1956 IBM 350. fifty 24-inch (0.6 m) platters, total capacity (3.75 megabytes).

NT