PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem

[Liam Proven]

On Mon, 18 Feb 2019 at 22:16, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> One of the moxt common causes of a terrible ear-piercing high whine is the
> spindle contact.  Many old drives had a springy piece that rubbed against
> the end of the spindle.  Over time, it would wear a divot, polish that,
> and start to squeal.  A very light pressure on it would test that
> hypothesis.  Not enough pressure to muffle the sound, and certaianly not
> enough pressure to slow the spindle!  Or, pulling up on it, away from the
> spindle.  Some people claimed that you could just rip it off.  Don't.
> Best is to twist it very slightly sideways, so that it can start wearing a
> new divot.

It was a 3½" EIDE drive. 8GB one, I think, but might have been
smaller. I didn't want to open it to do that, although there was a
time when custom PC builders "de-lidded" hard disks and fitted them
with little acrylic windows so you could see the head move. Not sure
I'd want to trust my data to that...

> Well, there don't seem to be many 350 RAMAC disks still running.
>
> (I'm trying to decide what to use as a base to make a patio table out of a
> [crashed] RAMAC 24" platter)

Conceded.

And thank you for the reminder that I'm not old yet.

My first machine with a hard disk was my work PC in my first job: an
IBM PC-AT, with a 20 MB FS/FH 5¼" ST-506 drive, probably a Seagate
ST-4026. I added a second drive to the machine, a 15 MB one, and put
Xenix/286 on it.

A few years ago I bought a surplus 2½" 1 TB drive from a chap who'd
bought a new notebook and put an SSD in it before use. So, 2nd hand
but unused.

It cost me CzK 1000, about £30 at the time.

£30 for a terabyte. I was in a state of shock. It was so tiny, too.

I found an online capacity comparator thing.

You'd need a pile of those Seagate drives the size of a _space
shuttle_ to hold a terabyte.

https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/53353.html

-- 
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053