wurmy
04-17-2006, 06:13 AM
Background:
I run standard cases that mount the drives horizontally. I don't run SATA at home, but I do run PATA and Ultra-SCSI320 drives at home. I've been on a big project for the last two years, and now have more time to futz around with my home PCs.
Anyway, two of my PATA drives went belly up, but while drunk, I was "inspired" to tip the cases because the drive noises that were made when the boxes were booting reminded me of old POST 1701 errors.
Way back in the day, some lubricants would get too thick over time, so what we would do was run the power, drop the CPU an inch or two, get it to POST ok, and then exercise the drive overnight.
In case it helps anyone, try running the drive vertically, and don't be afraid to slap it (if it looks dead already, you have nothing to lose). I've gotten all my data off and have replaced my drives, but because two boxes were affected, I really doubt that it's a coincidence.
One drive is a WD and the other is a Seagate. I'm going to contact their support to see if I can get an RMA out of warranty if they want to study it, but I suspect that it's something that the sharp folks (not the ones you get on the phone) are aware of the problem and that both companies are hush-hush about it.
The drives are perfectly usable in a vertical orientation while in an enclosure, so I don't want to rip them apart just to see if they have common guts (main disk motor, actuator motor, voltage regulators, other components, etc).
On an off topic, I noticed that my company's SANs (BIG Sun-branded Hitatchis - think like 45 TB) mount the drives vertically.
If anyone else got a "bad" drive to work after tipping the case, I'd like to hear about it out of curiosity.
Regards,
-wurmy
I run standard cases that mount the drives horizontally. I don't run SATA at home, but I do run PATA and Ultra-SCSI320 drives at home. I've been on a big project for the last two years, and now have more time to futz around with my home PCs.
Anyway, two of my PATA drives went belly up, but while drunk, I was "inspired" to tip the cases because the drive noises that were made when the boxes were booting reminded me of old POST 1701 errors.
Way back in the day, some lubricants would get too thick over time, so what we would do was run the power, drop the CPU an inch or two, get it to POST ok, and then exercise the drive overnight.
In case it helps anyone, try running the drive vertically, and don't be afraid to slap it (if it looks dead already, you have nothing to lose). I've gotten all my data off and have replaced my drives, but because two boxes were affected, I really doubt that it's a coincidence.
One drive is a WD and the other is a Seagate. I'm going to contact their support to see if I can get an RMA out of warranty if they want to study it, but I suspect that it's something that the sharp folks (not the ones you get on the phone) are aware of the problem and that both companies are hush-hush about it.
The drives are perfectly usable in a vertical orientation while in an enclosure, so I don't want to rip them apart just to see if they have common guts (main disk motor, actuator motor, voltage regulators, other components, etc).
On an off topic, I noticed that my company's SANs (BIG Sun-branded Hitatchis - think like 45 TB) mount the drives vertically.
If anyone else got a "bad" drive to work after tipping the case, I'd like to hear about it out of curiosity.
Regards,
-wurmy