Wow I have *NEVER* had that work and the few times I tried it I felt like the monkey in 2000 a space Odyssey... banking something with a bone rather in a rather clumsy fashion.. Glad to hear somebody can do it.
Seagate 4096 80MB *** Yes, that's Megabyte *** drives had a bad problem with stiction, where they wouldn't spin up. Whacking them with a screwdriver would sometimes work, but I found a more violent and reliable way was to lift the side of the case with the power switch about 3 inches off the desk, throw the switch, and drop the case. That would usually get the drive to spin up.
I also remember the old 8 bit "Hard Cards," and a drive problem that they had. I still remember the bulletin instructions. Something along the lines of
Hold the hard card at chest level at a 45 degree angle
Shake like a ketchup bottle.
Mark
I probably have the only functioning one left. :)
The ST-4096 also had severe problems with their stepper motor actuators. Some would just go crazy and rattle the heads all over the place - Effectively killing the drive. I had three of them do it to me back in the day.
Their 42MB ST-251-1 autopark drives were pretty darned reliable - Albeit slow.