Trying to rescue a hard disk -- weired feedback??

[Msquared]

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 08:47:24AM -0500, R. G. Newbury wrote:

> That tip has been posted here or elsewhere before. Apparently, the
> bearings get sticky, and cooling it down gets it 'unstuck' just enough
> to overcome the startup inertia. Once you get it spinning, do not let it
> stop as this trick is a one-timer apparently...

Not necessarily.  For a while I was using a machine that had a drive
suffering from stiction, and all it needed was for me to grab the machine
and wrench it about 45 degrees around the vertical axis just after I hit
the power button to turn it on.  (This happened to twist the drive about
its spindle's axis, thus overcoming the startup inertia.)

Worked like a charm until I finally managed to get a new drive.  :-)

However, you may be right, and it may be a one-timer, if it works at all.

William: if this works, I'd recommend pulling everything you can off it
while it's running, before shutting it off.  Start with the most important
and/or harder to replace data first, of course.

Regards, Msquared...