Eric J Korpela wrote:
up lubricants, keep the electrolytic caps polarized,
exercise the
drive heads, make it feel wanted)
LOL on the "feel wanted" part.
I have to second the notion that "it depends on usage". It also depends on
hardware -- for example, the older a hard drive is, the more it should be kept
running if at all possible (cooling permitting, of course) to prevent the
bearings from seizing up.
I had an ST-225 that wouldn't spin up once and I really wanted the data off of
it: I knew the drive heads were parked at the outside of the drive, so I took
a chance and put it on a lazy susan with the platters' axis of rotation aligned
with the lazy susan's axis. I slowly spun the entire unit on the lazy such
that centrifugal force kept the drive heads at the outside where they were
parked. When I had it up to a decent speed (ie as fast as my hand could turn
it without the drive flying off), I quickly stopped it, and heard the bearings
"unstick" and the platters move. Plugged it in, and it worked fine -- in fact,
it ran for three entire days. I powered the machine off (after grabbing the
data off of it of course), came back to it the next day, and it was dead for good.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at
oldskool.org)
http://www.oldskool.org/
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