Seagate only works upside down?

[Elixer]

I acquired a seagate HD that was in a leading edge computer case, and the odd thing about it is, if the drive in oriented the "normal" direction, with the PCB on bottom, drive reports errors.
If you flip the drive upside down, then all is fine with it.
I tried putting it on its side as well, and that just made really odd noises, and I/O errors.

So, what on earth could cause a HD to only work correctly upside down (PCB on top)?

Yes, this is a really, really old HD, I was just curious what was on it, got it for $1.
Also, yeah, the HD was upside down in the leading edge case as well.

 

[Malogeek]

Could be a simple matter of gravity allowing the head to sit properly on the platter. Used to do all sorts of things to hard drives to get them working enough to retrieve data, including bashing them on a hard surface with the power plugged in until the motor started spinning or putting them in a freezer for awhile.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, it's possible that it only works one way up.
Older HDDs especially, would take "set" how the HDD was installed. That HDD is probably old enough, that it has ball-bearings in it, which might have worn down in a specific way, preventing the HDD from working in other orientations.

 

[pcgeek11]

Could be a simple matter of gravity allowing the head to sit properly on the platter. Used to do all sorts of things to hard drives to get them working enough to retrieve data, including bashing them on a hard surface with the power plugged in until the motor started spinning or putting them in a freezer for awhile.

In a properly operating hard drive the head should Never sit on the platter. When the head touches the platter that is a hard disk crash and usually results in damage to the platter coating and data loss. It flies above the platter on an air cushion. When the drive stops it parks the heads.

As stated by Larry it is probably a bearing issue.

 

[Malogeek]

In a properly operating hard drive the head should Never sit on the platter. When the head touches the platter that is a hard disk crash and usually results in damage to the platter coating and data loss. It flies above the platter on an air cushion. When the drive stops it parks the heads.

Yes I realize it's not a record player. "on" should be "above" I guess.

 

[mikeymikec]

I once had a Seagate drive that performed noticeably better right-way-up than on its side. It only started giving me trouble some years after I decommisioned it (from a 24/7 role), IIRC.

 

[corkyg]

back in the "old days," this could happen to most any drive if that position were how it was initialized, formatted and used. I'm talking late 80s, early 90s.

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

i remember having to low level format MFM and RLL full height 5.25 inch drives anytime they were reoriented back in the day. 30 megabyte drives!! ooh the space.

that was around the seagate ST-225 and such days.

 

[Elixer]

I found the specs of the drive:

Form 3.5"/SLIMLINE Cylinders | 1001| |
Capacity form/unform 131/ MB Heads 3| 15| |
Seek time / track 16.0/ 3.0 ms Sector/track | 17| |
Controller IDE / AT Precompensation
Cache/Buffer 32 KB Landing Zone
Data transfer rate 1.875 MB/S int Bytes/Sector 512
4.000 MB/S ext
Recording method RLL 2/7
Rotation RPM 3211

Look at that blazing transfer rate, and that RPM.

The Seagate ST3144A was a very popular drive in 1992. It was the genuine article, a real voice coil drive with all the performance and reliability advantages voice coil construction brought.
...
Notice the peculiar spin rate: 3211 RPM. Remembering that the great majority of drives of this era were nominally 3600 RPM units, and allowing for minor variations, compare with the slightly earlier ST351A/X (3048 RPM), and then with various later Seagate drives up to around 850MB that all ran at Seagate's trademark 3811 RPM.

 

[seagate_surfer]

Reading your last post and considering the manufacturing date, we are actually pretty proud this drive is still "alive" - no matter in which orientation...
As already stated, this is most probably a simple gravity issue due to extensive wear and many years of operation!

Thanks for choosing Seagate!

 

[Elixer]

Sure, it is nice a drive from 1992 or so is still running to some extent, but, I really wished that longevity carried over to Seagate's drives made today.

Sadly, it has been my experience that the drives Seagate makes today are not as reliable as they once were.
With the shorter warranties, the really odd warranty terms (warranty starts when Seagate made the drive, NOT when you buy it from the store), it just isn't worth it to go with Seagate now.

I got a stack of Seagate drives sitting next to me, all dead, all had been RMAed, and all died shortly after 60 days, and in 1 case, I had back-to-back-to-back drives be DOA, it took 3 times to get back a working unit, and that died after 63 days I think it was. Just wasn't worth it to keep shipping it back to Seagate to get back another crappy "recertified" drive.

 

[bbhaag]

Not sure about current Seagates longevity but I do have a drive in one of my older 486 machines that has to be mounted on its side otherwise it wont boot properly. It's hard to explain but I can't mount it right side up and I can't mount it upside down. It has to be mounted sideways or it wont boot. It's the original drive for the system and the original configuration that DTK shipped it with.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I've got a pair of Seagate 1TB 7200RPM, retail-boxed (originally), pre-flood I think (Although the flood didn't directly affect Seagate's production facilities, only WD), and both have been running as a mirror in my TS212 NAS for at least three years now. So far so good. I've got weekly SMART quick tests, and monthly long tests scheduled on the NAS, just in case.

 

[hal2kilo]

i remember having to low level format MFM and RLL full height 5.25 inch drives anytime they were reoriented back in the day. 30 megabyte drives!! ooh the space.

that was around the seagate ST-225 and such days.

Memories.

 

[seagate_surfer]

Sadly, it has been my experience that the drives Seagate makes today are not as reliable as they once were.
With the shorter warranties, the really odd warranty terms (warranty starts when Seagate made the drive, NOT when you buy it from the store), it just isn't worth it to go with Seagate now.

I got a stack of Seagate drives sitting next to me, all dead, all had been RMAed, and all died shortly after 60 days, and in 1 case, I had back-to-back-to-back drives be DOA, it took 3 times to get back a working unit, and that died after 63 days I think it was. Just wasn't worth it to keep shipping it back to Seagate to get back another crappy "recertified" drive.

This is exactly why we are here and why we are currently working on expanding our presence in other forums as well.
Thank you so much for your feedback! We are taking this very seriously and we will forward this to the corresponding department to optimize our customer experience in the future!

 

[deustroop]

What ? Did he just say something ?

"Optimize our customer experience in the future!"?

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.