One of my Kaypro 10s has a bad case of the dreaded 'Spindle
Stiction', ie. it won't spin up on it's own.
I have learned to smack it in just the right place, to produce a
radial moment normal to the plane of rotation, and then it spins up
and boots. The first time I did this, I backed up the drive to
floppies, so if the drive dies for good, no big deal. Allison, I
believe, was the person who discussed this fairly common problem,
some months ago.
And since starting a drive with the handle of a big screwdriver
can only be termed *abuse*, it's amazing that the poor thing works
at all.
But try this, in case there is something wonderful living on the
HD, before you format it.
(If in fact the no-boot is caused by stiction....)
Cheers
John