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...
