3 ms·

I once had an old IBM-PC that the previous owner had upgraded with a 20MB hard drive. They said after a while it just stopped booting, which is why they gave it

I once had an old IBM-PC that the previous owner had upgraded with a 20MB hard drive. They said after a while it just stopped booting, which is why they gave it to me. I found that if I manipulated the axle of the read-write-head arm where it came out through the bottom of the drive, it would "unstick" the head from the surface of the disk, and the thing would boot! I imagine there was some kind of lubricant in there that would congeal when the machine was off for a certain amount of time. So I left the drive slot cover off, and "fingering" the drive would get it to start reliably for a number of years after that.

amatecha 3y ago
Huh this is really good to know, I have a drive where the head seems to "stick" to the drive (or something)... I wonder if that's a potential common solution, just jostle it around and/or lubricate it to free it up a bit??
- userbinator 3y ago
  It's called stiction. On old stepper-motor-based drives this would commonly happen if the heads weren't parked before powering off. I don't recommend directly manipulating the actuator as you can literally shear the heads off the actuator arm with too much force, but a bit of oblique shock to the side of the drive will usually unstick them with less risk of damage.