hard drive advice requested

From: Jay West <jwest_at_classiccmp.org>
Date: Sun Sep 28 19:32:16 2003

I finally started refurb on a drive rack, a nice low-boy HP 29425 with wood
top. It's my first HP drive project that uses the 13037 subsystem, with a
7906 drive. This is so I can finally start going through all the 7905/7906
drives I have and figure out what works and what doesn't.

After going over the drive very carefully with a fine tooth comb, checking
all the power supply voltages, test point voltages, etc... the moment of
truth - hit the load switch, then turned it off just before the heads
loaded. Did this a few times to make sure the blowers sucked any stray
particles up and to the filter before letting the heads load. Finally I let
them load and got a nice clean (fortunately quiet) "drive ready". Which
leads me to my question...

In testing unknown drives and cartridges... one never knows if the heads
will come out the first time and shred against the platter. I've never been
standing around when a head crashes, but I envision horrible grinding noise
as metal shards shoot everywhere inside the drive. Is there anything I can
do other than visual inspection, before spinning up an unknown drive and
letting the heads load, to help alleviate the bad possibility of a crash on
a drive that probably hasn't been used in 25+ years?

Jay West
Received on Sun Sep 28 2003 - 19:32:16 BST