Noisy profile hard drive

From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
Date: Thu Dec 30 18:44:15 2004

> > I've got someone asking me about a Profile hard drive in a Lisa 2/10. He
> > says it makes a loud screaming noise when it is running. Maybe bad
> > bearings?
>
>
> 72 years ago, I was in charge of an early 3Com LAN, with drives in
> stacked 'shoeboxes'. I came in one Monday morning to find one of the
> drives making this thin 'shrieking' noise.
>
> I of course did a panic shutdown and got the Vendor rolling - turns out
> that it was the Absolute Filter on top of the drive case making the same
> kind of noise that one makes by blowing across a piece of taut paper. The
> tech just pressed down on the aluminum cover at the edge of the filter
> 'pod' and that fixed it.
>
> I was sure the heads had crashed, but somehow the system was still
> running - though I couldn't see how, since it sounded like the heads were
> milling the platters into expensive red dust.
>
> Maybe this is what's happening here??

Another thing that can make a worrying (but non-fatal) noise on older
hard drives is the spindle earthing (grounding) contact. This is normally
a phosphor-bronze strip soldered to the PCB carrying a graphite pad that
presses on the end of the spindle. It can often be silenced by bending it
so a differnt part of the pad rests on the spindle, or by sticking
something (foam, for example) on the spring to damp the vibrations.

Don't just remove it, though (I have seen this done), or you might get
more data errors.

-tony
Received on Thu Dec 30 2004 - 18:44:15 GMT