Reviving old hard drives

Bob; Please don't beat on the drive! The heads on these old-timers would sometimes stick to the platters and not spin up. You can usually break them loose without damage if you know what you're doing. This is a little hard to describe so bear with me. You need to remove the drive from the computer. Hold it with your hand on the bottom next to the circuit board. Rotate the drive quickly by twisting your wrist, stopping short at the end of your range of motion. In other words, get both the platters and the drive rotating, and then stop the drive suddenly. You can usually hear the platter rotating for a second or two after the stop if you are successful. Replace the drive and see if it works. Be prepared to make a backup of the drive before you turn it off again -- that may be the last time it works. Once they start doing this, things only get worse. Paul Pennington Augusta, Georgia