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- From: marc@cxr_rs6000.med.ge.com (Marc Wolfgram)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
- Subject: Re: Disk drive sticktion(?)
- Message-ID: <9211111508.AA08810@cxr_rs6000>
- Date: 11 Nov 92 15:08:42 GMT
- Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
- Organization: The Internet
- Lines: 25
-
- Paul Schultz writes:
- > ...ST277N drive (circa 1987) and on rare occasions it won't come up to
- >speed and the drive LED flashes a number of times. When I power down and
- >re-boot, it usually goes away. Is this STICTION??
-
- No... stiction is where the drive does not spin at all... Usually you can
- get a "stuck" drive to spin up by tapping on the frame or by snapping it
- in the axis of the spindle (much like a frisbee - but don't let go.)
-
- Somebody mentioned a few posts back that he removed the drive cover and turned
- the platters by hand (gasp!) This is NOT a safe practice - the smallest bit
- of dust can cause a physical head crash later, making for nice decorative
- platters to hang on the wall and impress your friends. In a last ditch effort
- this can be tried but plan on pulling everything off the drive if you succeede
- and then plan on retiring the mechanical.
-
- Back to you're problem :) The flashing LED is an indication that there was
- either a physical or logical problem accessing the drive. Most drives have
- this form of SOS to tell you that something isn't right but it's not dead
- yet. If this is truely rare, then it could be something as simple as the CPU
- tripping the drive before its ready or just a bad day.
-
- Marc Wolfgram
- AOL: M Wolfgram GEnie: M.WOLFGRAM2 inet: marc@cxr_rs6000.med.ge.com
- There are two ways to write bug-free code and only the third one works!
-