[dread78645]

> We took the case off, tapped on the drive with a screwdriver and it spun up.

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.

Several somebodies. The early Seagate drives were notorious for stiction.
In many cases the problem would be aggravated by a marginal power supply. Adding a 47uf to the 5 volt lead usually helped the problem machine.

[MarkL]

In many cases the problem would be aggravated by a marginal power supply. Adding a 47uf to the 5 volt lead usually helped the problem machine.

And an swful lot of those power supplies just sent a signal to the "power good" line, rather than waiting for the voltage to stabilize.

Mark

[ExDemSince92]

Several somebodies. The early Seagate drives were notorious for stiction. In many cases the problem would be aggravated by a marginal power supply. Adding a 47uf to the 5 volt lead usually helped the problem machine.

Holding one in the palm of your hand and spinning it sharply while quickly lowering it into the palm of your other hand would free up the spindle bearings too. (Or completely screw it up beyond salvage if you did it too hard)

They certainly build them better today.