Unsticking a Seagate ST-419 head

[william degnan]

On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 4:25 PM, Jason Howe <jason at smbfc.net> wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, Mike Stein wrote:
>
> I've got several ST251-1s that spin up just fine, no funny noises, but
>> then do a bunch of back-and-forth seeks and shut down again.
>>
>> It's the usual, "they worked fine the last time;" any ideas what the
>> problem is and if there's anything that can be done? Presumably it's having
>> trouble finding the sync track; weak signal? Any ideas?
>>
>> m
>>
> I'm actually trying to bring an ST251-1 back to life right now.  It
> worked, then was intermitently not recongnized by the controller after
> being powered on for a while, now not recognized at all.  When you apply
> power it runs through whatever standard head-sweep routine (self-test?),
> but there seems to be a communication breakdown between the Drive
> electronics and controller board.
>
> Various sources on the interwebs suggest me that the small SMD tant caps
> by the power connector are a known issue on these drives and can lead to
> all sorts of flaky behavior.
>
> I've orderd a few from digikey, hopefully will have them by this weekend
> to attempt a repair.
>
> See my forum post here, where my shoot-in-the dark analsys is disagreed
> with: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?54516-Caps-for-an-ST251-1:
>
> --Jason
>


Can you swap the controller board of the drive with another drive's?