[rescue] Hard disk lifespans in Sun gear

[Patrick Giagnocavo]

On Oct 18, 2007, at 9:17 AM, Mr Ian Primus wrote:
>
> What is going on here? I haven't seen this level of
> disk failure before. In my experience, these Seagate
> drives are very reliable. I know that the slot isn't
> bad, because during the process of replacing the
> drive, the positions got reversed. Another odd thing
> is that they both failed the same way. They both don't
> spin at all. Normally, when I do see these drives
> fail, they spin, but make clunking noises. I am
> willing to chalk it up to coincidence, but I would be
> interested to hear other people's history with Sun
> disks.
>

How old are these drives?  I would suspect that any drive over 5  
years old may give you problems.

If the drive stops spinning, then either the lubrication has dried up  
or run out of the bearing onto the drive platter, or the board  
electronics have been fried, which is the worse of the two cases  
since this can mean the motherboard has a problem.

I would open the dead drive and a) look for a thin film of oil on the  
platters b) attempt to turn the platters by hand to see how easily  
they spin. Also gently move the arm that holds the head to see if it  
moves freely.

Cordially

Patrick Giagnocavo
patrick at zill.net