Common Maxtor MFM drive failure mode -- any ideas?

[Josh Dersch]

On 10/23/15 2:43 PM, Al Kossow wrote:
> On 10/23/15 12:39 PM, Josh Dersch wrote:
>> I don't
>> suppose anyone has a service manual for these things so I know what 
>> stuff
>> to probe?  (Nothing on Bitsavers and a casual Google search turns up
>> nothing of interest.)
>>
>
> Service manuals/schematics/ASIC info is EXTREMELY difficult to get for 
> anything beyond
> the stepper motor era. What is on bitsavers are the results of my 
> searching for
> 20+ years, and that isn't much. I've been digging into early 90's 
> DC2000 QIC drives over the
> past couple weeks, and hw docs for them are just as difficult to find.

That's pretty much what I figured.  I took a closer look at one of the 
other dead XT2190s I have that I'd opened up to inspect awhile back and 
there are a few ICs surface-mounted to the flat ribbon cable running to 
the head assembly.  I suppose it's likely that one of these has failed, 
though actually repairing it would be a trick involving some very 
careful disassembly in a very clean environment.  (And a nonexistent 
service manual.)

- Josh