> From:    ken kovler <[log in to unmask]>
>
> Is it possible for a 4 1/2 year old hard drive's platter to stick (not
> spin)and cause the bios to report back hard drive failure?

Yes.  I have seen quite a few old hard drives that failed to spin without
assistance.

Various causes.  Bad bearings (squeal, rattle, many bad sectors). Sticky
bearings (runs well when warm). For the old drives with external flywheel,
lint, thread, etc. wound around the shaft, (even a small rock!) could
prevent it from rotating. Removing <whatever> fixed them. In another case,
the heads had wrecked on the shaft (by going to too high a cylinder number?),
and were scratching on the platters (all sorts of scraping noises when I
rotated the flywheel with abnormally high peaks of resistance).

Note that one source of noise that is not related to bearing wear is the
little carbon button that grounds the end of the shaft. I have read that a
dot of Room-Temperature-Vulcanising (RTV) Silicone on the back of the button
(on the side farthest from the platters) increases the mass and dampens
the vibration.

If a drive refuses to spin, check for any obvious impediment, and if
possible, try to move the platters.  One trick I have found useful, is to
use slightly longer than usual cables (to permit movement of the loose
hard drive on a sheet of formica), and give the drive a quick
snap-of-the-wrist to spin the housing around the spin axis just after I
switch on the power.  The inertia of the platters causes them to "stay
still", while the relative motion breaks static friction (which is
always higher than moving friction).

Once the drive is running, take a full backup. This may be your LAST
CHANCE. You may not be able to coax it to spin the next time it stops. Now
you can consider replacing the dying drive without losing the data, too.

>                                                           This problem I
> am having  seems to  occur if I let the system sit for several days. I
> power it up and get a hard drive failure message. Also I notice the hard
> drive's red LED is stuck on solid. If I get into the bios and do an
> autodetect the drive is found with the correct parameters, but when I save
> and exit the system still reboots with hard drive error message.
>
> The only way I have been able to get the drive readable again is to power
> down and tap or jar the whole case of the computer,

Not such a good idea - you could loosen something - and if you lift one
corner of the case and drop it, most of the impact is probably along the
axis of rotation - in the least useful direction!

>                                                      then power back up and
> the drive works fine, no errors when using scan disk. If I use it everyday
> no problem.

Keep using it - but be prepared for it to quit suddenly. ("There are only
two kinds of hard drives.  Those that have failed, and those that have
not failed - YET!")

>           This problem has just started  recently with the  computer.
> Nothing was added to the hardware nor was the computer moved.
> The system is a pentium 75, with a western digital 1.2 gbyte hard drive,
> setup using a disk manager .I will recheck all the internal connections
> just to be sure it is not that. Any ideas?
>
> Thanks;  Ken

Boyd Ramsay

[log in to unmask]

         The PCBUILD web site always needs good submissions.  If
          you would like to contribute to the website, send any
               hardware tech tips or hardware reviews to:
                           [log in to unmask]