They wasn't so reliable, especially in comparing with today's drives. Failures was usual thing. Fixing was easier if disk wasn't physically damaged. Usually oiling or head cleaning issues. Nowadays disks just work or doesn't work. If they doesn't work, they are done.
HA! These Miniscribe drives were an absolute joke! Heads snapping off, head crashes, failing steppers and spindle motors, the track 0 interrupter coming out of alignment and losing all your data at random... If you wanted a hard disk at this time you would have only bought one of these if you had no money and had done no research. These disks were extremely succeptible to early failure and most of them died when they were barely a year or two old - The ones that are still around are the few that didn't and while they work it won't be for long.
The first hard drive I owned was a 5 megabyte Tandon. To get it to work I had to use a park program in DOS to force it to set its start position. From then on it worked fine, and I always made sure to run park before flipping the big red switch.
Maybe a lubrication of the stepper motor could be healty. I fixed an old Mac SE's Miniscribe drive in this way, which had the stepper motor quite jammed (after some minutes of working, as it warmed up it began to make strange noises when seeking the heads, similar to the "beep" heard in this video, until the drive became completely unaccessible).
Common failure. The lubricant in the stepper bearings dries out and goes sticky. It frees up through exercise, or a drop of light oil in the end of the stepper.
6 years on, I have this same model drive (3212) and it does exactly this and fails to initialize. Despite adding oil, and the actuator obviously not jamming, it does the same thing. Wonderful!
Do you still have this disk? Adding some oil to the stepper motor and gently exercising it for a little while can sometimes fix this. At the end of the seek test it's intended to quickly jump back to track zero (outer edge of the disk) but yours seems stuck. That, or your interrupter is misaligned. Tighten the screws on the interrupter (black plastic optical thing on the side of the stepper motor) and add some oil while you're there anyways. Could easily save this drive, even after the cover is open.
Stepper needs lubricated. Very common with stepper drives. Turn it on its side and put a little oil or wd-40 around the "interrupter" shaft and let it soak in. Move the interrupter carefully until it moves more freely. Should work fine.
rwindiana I don't have any knowledge on lubricating stepper motors in particular, but I personally would probably try the usual 3-in-1 oil or something similar.
***** 3-in-1 seems like it wouldn't penetrate real well, and might be too viscous/sticky. But next time I get a stuck one I might try it. So far WD-40 seems fine since they just need something to unstick the shaft. How about clock oil, or even kerosene?
rwindiana I don't know, I've never had to deal with a sticking stepper motor. I just know WD-40 isn't the answer, at least in the situation in this video. If the motor was completely frozen due to rust or something, then yes.
This is a typical failure. The grease in the stepper bearings / rack gets a bit congealed and the stepper drops steps on the high speed seeks. The cure is just to exercise it. If it has a jumper to make it do a repetitive seek self-test, enable that and run it for a few minutes. Otherwise, just keep doing whatever you can to make it seek until it frees up.
It looks like the seek test is interrupted on the way back to park. It's supposed to go all the way back. Could it be something jamming it? Perhaps lubricating the stepper motor as someone else said here would be a good idea.
Yes mine had the same error code as yours. Which is a code D I believe. I think what's happening is the stepper motor gets stuck when it try's to pull the heads back to track zero. Because the stepper motor was very stiff on mine. But once I put the oil in the motor it was like new again. It might be worth a try since it's already broken you have nothing to lose.
On some of these drives there is an audible pop or click near the end of the spinup, followed by a sudden change of acceleration. I have wondered if this is comparable to a wye/delta switching event.
It's a electromechanical head lock that prevents the heads from moving when not spinning and on these older drives it usually makes a big clank when engaging. Modern drives use a purely mechanical system which relies on the air pushed around the platters to unlock the head assembly
The stepper motor oil became a sticky goo in a Munch omount of time You have ti make It seek a lot and put heads back ti zero Or Simply put new oil in it
i cant see it too well but when your holding the cam sideways it looks like the top is is quite a ways away from the disk! if so, i GUESS you can try and push it down as im fairly sure you would have nothing else to lose. and also from the second time you turned it on the drive doesnt seem like the heads know where they are and just go back to a set position.
Yeah, the interrupter is probably out of alignment. It's supposed to do a quick, sharp jump back to track zero at the end of it's seek test. The interrupter is improperly adjusted and all the data is lost.
and after 30 years it still works, if only harddrives now were that reliable.
hifijohn to be fair, it died on me right before I did this video. But it was about 30 years old when it died.
hifijohn the motor still worked but t wouldn't initialize and was unusable for storage
They wasn't so reliable, especially in comparing with today's drives. Failures was usual thing. Fixing was easier if disk wasn't physically damaged. Usually oiling or head cleaning issues. Nowadays disks just work or doesn't work. If they doesn't work, they are done.
HA! These Miniscribe drives were an absolute joke! Heads snapping off, head crashes, failing steppers and spindle motors, the track 0 interrupter coming out of alignment and losing all your data at random... If you wanted a hard disk at this time you would have only bought one of these if you had no money and had done no research.
These disks were extremely succeptible to early failure and most of them died when they were barely a year or two old - The ones that are still around are the few that didn't and while they work it won't be for long.
Makes me remember that old drives don't autopark the head on power off
The first hard drive I owned was a 5 megabyte Tandon. To get it to work I had to use a park program in DOS to force it to set its start position. From then on it worked fine, and I always made sure to run park before flipping the big red switch.
Maybe a lubrication of the stepper motor could be healty. I fixed an old Mac SE's Miniscribe drive in this way, which had the stepper motor quite jammed (after some minutes of working, as it warmed up it began to make strange noises when seeking the heads, similar to the "beep" heard in this video, until the drive became completely unaccessible).
Common failure. The lubricant in the stepper bearings dries out and goes sticky.
It frees up through exercise, or a drop of light oil in the end of the stepper.
6 years on, I have this same model drive (3212) and it does exactly this and fails to initialize. Despite adding oil, and the actuator obviously not jamming, it does the same thing. Wonderful!
Mine made a noise and then stopped working
@@offensivejerk Interesting. I wonder why. As a result, Ive never seen a working 3212.
everyone's a gangster 'til the hard drive starts spitting out disks like frisbees
4 people were triggered by the extendable/retractable arm of the HDD. 😋😎
Do you still have this disk? Adding some oil to the stepper motor and gently exercising it for a little while can sometimes fix this. At the end of the seek test it's intended to quickly jump back to track zero (outer edge of the disk) but yours seems stuck. That, or your interrupter is misaligned. Tighten the screws on the interrupter (black plastic optical thing on the side of the stepper motor) and add some oil while you're there anyways. Could easily save this drive, even after the cover is open.
It almost seems like the stepper is slipping a bit towards the end of the power up seek.
Stepper needs lubricated. Very common with stepper drives. Turn it on its side and put a little oil or wd-40 around the "interrupter" shaft and let it soak in. Move the interrupter carefully until it moves more freely. Should work fine.
rwindiana WD-40 is NOT a lubricant. In-fact it's one of the worst things you could use to lubricate something.
***** What would you recommend?
rwindiana I don't have any knowledge on lubricating stepper motors in particular, but I personally would probably try the usual 3-in-1 oil or something similar.
***** 3-in-1 seems like it wouldn't penetrate real well, and might be too viscous/sticky. But next time I get a stuck one I might try it. So far WD-40 seems fine since they just need something to unstick the shaft. How about clock oil, or even kerosene?
rwindiana I don't know, I've never had to deal with a sticking stepper motor. I just know WD-40 isn't the answer, at least in the situation in this video. If the motor was completely frozen due to rust or something, then yes.
You can see that not much has changed in the technology between than, and now! Amazing! Never change a winning team i guess :p
I would rather say that not much has changed in the principles of working but a hell lot changed in the technology.
This is a typical failure. The grease in the stepper bearings / rack gets a bit congealed and the stepper drops steps on the high speed seeks.
The cure is just to exercise it. If it has a jumper to make it do a repetitive seek self-test, enable that and run it for a few minutes. Otherwise, just keep doing whatever you can to make it seek until it frees up.
Which is exactly the way you fix crackling knobs on a synthesizer.
It looks like the seek test is interrupted on the way back to park. It's supposed to go all the way back. Could it be something jamming it? Perhaps lubricating the stepper motor as someone else said here would be a good idea.
That or adjusting the interrupter but yes.
I just fixed my 3650 by putting a drop of 3 in one oil on the stepper motor.
you had an error code on yours???
Yes mine had the same error code as yours. Which is a code D I believe. I think what's happening is the stepper motor gets stuck when it try's to pull the heads back to track zero. Because the stepper motor was very stiff on mine. But once I put the oil in the motor it was like new again. It might be worth a try since it's already broken you have nothing to lose.
And I didn't have to take the cover off. I just oiled it from the outside.
Crap. I think it moved freely. I had already taken this thing apart and destroyed it. Too bad. I should have tried oiling it.
Well at least you know now if you ever get another one with the same problem you can try this.
basically its dead when you open and run it, because the head dont have air current below it like it does when drive cover is closed
wow cool~~
On some of these drives there is an audible pop or click near the end of the spinup, followed by a sudden change of acceleration. I have wondered if this is comparable to a wye/delta switching event.
It's a electromechanical head lock that prevents the heads from moving when not spinning and on these older drives it usually makes a big clank when engaging. Modern drives use a purely mechanical system which relies on the air pushed around the platters to unlock the head assembly
The stepper motor is swearing????
2 platters?
My Miniscribe 3650 is doing the same thing.
The stepper motor oil became a sticky goo in a Munch omount of time
You have ti make It seek a lot and put heads back ti zero
Or Simply put new oil in it
@@evachimpanze8453 Yes, I oiled it and it’s still working fine to this very day 6 years later. :)
i cant see it too well but when your holding the cam sideways it looks like the top is is quite a ways away from the disk! if so, i GUESS you can try and push it down as im fairly sure you would have nothing else to lose.
and also from the second time you turned it on the drive doesnt seem like the heads know where they are and just go back to a set position.
Yeah, the interrupter is probably out of alignment. It's supposed to do a quick, sharp jump back to track zero at the end of it's seek test. The interrupter is improperly adjusted and all the data is lost.
10mb woooow, this thing will just about hold 2 x 3min mp3's
Why would you?
Was like 10tb
It s allive
No,the stepper motor Is stuck
JUST 10MB??????? WHAAAAT
Whole 10 Mb
Some time ago ,drives of this era was havind even 300 bytes (10000 times Power than a megabyte)
In the old era this was like 10 petabytes of today
Boring