re disk drive noises (was Re: Win 3.0)

From: Gary Oliver <go_at_ao.com>
Date: Fri Jan 30 15:25:47 1998

It's slightly off thread, but I had (actually still have but haven't
used in a while) an old SA4000 14 inch 27 megabyte drive that makes
"the devils own noise" when it's powered up. I remember the first
time I applied power (had built my own interface/controller and was
just about to try it for the first time.) There came such a racket!
Like a dozen cats being skinned simultaneously! Seems the beast is
belt driven and the torque required to spin is so great the belt
slips for several seconds at startup (Shugart told me it was
designed that way!)

My first power up was for about 3 seconds before I sailed across the
desk and hit the OFF switch. I've heard MAJOR head crashes that
sounded more gentile. Anyway, about two thousand on/off cycles later,
it still made the noise and still worked perfectly every time it was
powered up.

Gary.

At 04:18 PM 1/30/98 +0000, you wrote:
>> On Fri, 30 Jan 1998 19:59:47 +0300, you said:
>>
>> >>(Does anyone else think that the sounds made by old MFM drives is really
>> >>cool??)
>> >Yep. I think that some sound like "lasers" or optical devices of some
sort.
>> >Still make me feel like I'm living in the future.
>>
>> I sold a drive (IIRC, a micropolis 85MB) that would spool up and then
>> do a couple of "ching-chings" and worked fine. I tested the livin'
>> daylights out of it; no problems, but many folks told me and the
>> fellow I sold it to that it would die immediately.
>
>What about couple of hdd's that I have that made 'strange' noises?
>Priam 65mb makes pinging noise of a ping-pong dropping right after
>main motor finishes winding up to rpm. And onther one, miniscribe
>3180E that screams that terrible loud whine if heads commanded to
>move from track to track rapidly. There another not so good
>noises of some hard drives that did warbled series of bird-like
>squeals then fades out as platters is spun up or down have too shiney
>platter landing/take off area. That is real killer sign of a
>failing hd.
>
>Oh, I had one die literally SCREAMING LOUD that could be
>heard next room over which I happen to be in while talking to boss!
>Hard to believe how much noise possible from little ST3144A hd.
>
>Jaosn D.
>email: jpero_at_cgo.wave.ca
>Pero, Jason D.
>
Received on Fri Jan 30 1998 - 15:25:47 GMT