"BWL" wrote in message
...
The two drives must be as nearly identical as possible; different
revisions
will not work. Have you tried any of the other suggested methods for jump
starting a dead drive? Freezing, twisting the drive in your hand as it
begins
to start up (that one actually worked for me; saved 80G of data from a
stuck WD
drive)...?

So far nothing mechanical has worked. I need to do a little more
experimenting to see if I can feel the motor turning before I even think
about swapping the electronics.
Right now one drive is sitting on my desk and the other is mounted in a
drive frame with its label partially hidden. All I know right now is that
they're the same model, i.e. Caviar 31200 but I can't read the label to see
how "identical" they are. It's my vague recollection that I bought them at
the same time -- I think I walked into the store and bought two from the
shelf together -- so if that's true they'll be as "identical" as possible, 7
years after purchase (March 1997 date code).

Thanks for the suggestions
Norm