I have an old 5.25" Quantum Bigfoot CY6.4 hard drive which I want to
use in an old PC.

It was working some months ago when I hooked it up to a USB adaptor on
a Ubuntu PC and backed up its contents.

But now it isn't recognized by the OS (various old Linux and new Ubuntu
Linux versions), neither on the old PC nor on the USB adaptor.

'dmesg' shows info for a different drive (which works), but nothing for
the Quantum drive.

There's a little green SMD LED on the PCB which is steadily lit at
first (and the BIOS displays its capacity, C/H/S, etc. so can obviously
read the drive) but which then begins to flash repeatedly in a pattern
of 8 flashes - short pause - 10 flashes.

Not sure if that could be something built into the firmware, or some
pattern of repeated access attempts by the kernel.

I've tried it jumpered as master and as slave, and with an old 40
conductor ribbon cable and a new 80 conductor cable, on its own and
with a CDROM drive. But nothing works.

I'm puzzled. Is the LED a disk activity light? There's something about
one I/O line being sometimes shared as a 'slave select' and a 'disk
activity' line, but I can't see what that would have to do with the
problem.

I have a very vague and possibly unreliable memory of having to tinker
a bit, or do something special, when the drive was new, but no clear
recollection.

Going to see if I can find any HD diagnostic program which might report
something, but meanwhile, does anyone know what the flash pattern
indicates?

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

Windmill wrote:
I have an old 5.25" Quantum Bigfoot CY6.4 hard drive which I want to
use in an old PC.

Do you hear the disk spinning when power is applied to it? Many old
drives, particularly those that have been sitting for a while, fail to
spin due to the heads sticking to the disk surface. I believe the term
is stiction or something like that. If it is not spinning apply power
and tap the edge of the drive sharply against the palm of your hand.
Sometimes that will break the heads loose.

A drive not spinning will not be detected.

It was working some months ago when I hooked it up to a USB adaptor on
a Ubuntu PC and backed up its contents.

But now it isn't recognized by the OS (various old Linux and new Ubuntu
Linux versions), neither on the old PC nor on the USB adaptor.

'dmesg' shows info for a different drive (which works), but nothing for
the Quantum drive.

There's a little green SMD LED on the PCB which is steadily lit at
first (and the BIOS displays its capacity, C/H/S, etc. so can obviously
read the drive) but which then begins to flash repeatedly in a pattern
of 8 flashes - short pause - 10 flashes.

Not sure if that could be something built into the firmware, or some
pattern of repeated access attempts by the kernel.

I've tried it jumpered as master and as slave, and with an old 40
conductor ribbon cable and a new 80 conductor cable, on its own and
with a CDROM drive. But nothing works.

I'm puzzled. Is the LED a disk activity light? There's something about
one I/O line being sometimes shared as a 'slave select' and a 'disk
activity' line, but I can't see what that would have to do with the
problem.

I have a very vague and possibly unreliable memory of having to tinker
a bit, or do something special, when the drive was new, but no clear
recollection.

Going to see if I can find any HD diagnostic program which might report
something, but meanwhile, does anyone know what the flash pattern
indicates?

"Windmill" wrote in message
...
I have an old 5.25" Quantum Bigfoot CY6.4 hard drive which I want to
use in an old PC.

It was working some months ago when I hooked it up to a USB adaptor on
a Ubuntu PC and backed up its contents.

But now it isn't recognized by the OS (various old Linux and new Ubuntu
Linux versions), neither on the old PC nor on the USB adaptor.

'dmesg' shows info for a different drive (which works), but nothing for
the Quantum drive.

There's a little green SMD LED on the PCB which is steadily lit at
first (and the BIOS displays its capacity, C/H/S, etc. so can obviously
read the drive) but which then begins to flash repeatedly in a pattern
of 8 flashes - short pause - 10 flashes.


I'm pretty sure that is a code for something - but you'll likely need to be
a tenacious googler to find out what.

In article ,
Windmill wrote:
There's a little green SMD LED on the PCB which is steadily lit at
first

"Spinning up, hold on ..."

but which then begins to flash repeatedly in a pattern
of 8 flashes - short pause - 10 flashes.

"Error."

Old drives did that, as they weren't SMART capable and had no way
of communicating any kind of detail as to the error. The "blink code"
will tell you exactly what's wrong, if you can just decode what it
means.

The drive may not be spinning up, or may not be achieving full/stable speed
quick enough.
--
--------------------------------------+------------------------------------
Mike Brown: mjb[-at-]signal11.org.uk | http://www.signal11.org.uk

--- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net/ - Complaints to ---

In article , spam-no-
lid says...
I have an old 5.25" Quantum Bigfoot CY6.4 hard drive which I want to
use in an old PC.

It was working some months ago when I hooked it up to a USB adaptor on
a Ubuntu PC and backed up its contents.

But now it isn't recognized by the OS (various old Linux and new Ubuntu
Linux versions), neither on the old PC nor on the USB adaptor.

'dmesg' shows info for a different drive (which works), but nothing for
the Quantum drive.

There's a little green SMD LED on the PCB which is steadily lit at
first (and the BIOS displays its capacity, C/H/S, etc. so can obviously
read the drive) but which then begins to flash repeatedly in a pattern
of 8 flashes - short pause - 10 flashes.

Not sure if that could be something built into the firmware, or some
pattern of repeated access attempts by the kernel.

I've tried it jumpered as master and as slave, and with an old 40
conductor ribbon cable and a new 80 conductor cable, on its own and
with a CDROM drive. But nothing works.

I'm puzzled. Is the LED a disk activity light? There's something about
one I/O line being sometimes shared as a 'slave select' and a 'disk
activity' line, but I can't see what that would have to do with the
problem.

I have a very vague and possibly unreliable memory of having to tinker
a bit, or do something special, when the drive was new, but no clear
recollection.

Going to see if I can find any HD diagnostic program which might report
something, but meanwhile, does anyone know what the flash pattern
indicates?



Yup sounds like a stuck drive. Those bigfoots did that a lot, as did the
earlier Seagates.

As mentioned by another, just rap the drive on it's side, and it should
let go. Be aware however, that the stuck head may pull off the magnetic
material when it breaks loose. Normally we did this as a last ditch
effort to get the data off of the drive before tossing it out.

- Tim -

On Thu, 1 Dec 2011 10:54:41 GMT, lid
(Windmill) put finger to keyboard and composed:

I have an old 5.25" Quantum Bigfoot CY6.4 hard drive which I want to
use in an old PC.

There's a little green SMD LED on the PCB which is steadily lit at
first (and the BIOS displays its capacity, C/H/S, etc. so can obviously
read the drive) but which then begins to flash repeatedly in a pattern
of 8 flashes - short pause - 10 flashes.

Not sure if that could be something built into the firmware, or some
pattern of repeated access attempts by the kernel.

Does the same thing happen if you power up the drive without the
interface cable?

If you disconnect one of the RAM buffer pins, does the LED pattern
change? Doing so should result in a Sector Buffer Error (error code
03h).

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

Franc Zabkar writes:

I have an old 5.25" Quantum Bigfoot CY6.4 hard drive which I want to
use in an old PC.
There's a little green SMD LED on the PCB which is steadily lit at
first (and the BIOS displays its capacity, C/H/S, etc. so can obviously
read the drive) but which then begins to flash repeatedly in a pattern
of 8 flashes - short pause - 10 flashes.
Not sure if that could be something built into the firmware, or some
pattern of repeated access attempts by the kernel.

Does the same thing happen if you power up the drive without the
interface cable?

Yes. I should have thought of that. So it's the drive's firmware which
is generating the flash pattern

If you disconnect one of the RAM buffer pins, does the LED pattern
change? Doing so should result in a Sector Buffer Error (error code
03h).

Not sure where I would do that. I haven't disassembled the drive and
don't have a full technical manual for it, and I'm not sure where I
would be able to disconnect (and then later reconnect) a single pin on
a tiny SMD.

Should the flash pattern be interpreted as hex code 8A ? Do you have
something which lists these codes, or a link to something which does? I
found some information by Googling, but nothing about error codes from
the LED.

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

Ken writes:

Windmill wrote:
I have an old 5.25" Quantum Bigfoot CY6.4 hard drive which I want to
use in an old PC.

Do you hear the disk spinning when power is applied to it? Many old
drives, particularly those that have been sitting for a while, fail to
spin due to the heads sticking to the disk surface. I believe the term
is stiction or something like that. If it is not spinning apply power
and tap the edge of the drive sharply against the palm of your hand.
Sometimes that will break the heads loose.

A drive not spinning will not be detected.

I think you're probably correct. Can't hear anything except some
ticking noises.

Odd that it would sit unused in a PC for many months, work when I
removed it and backed it up via a USB adaptor on another PC, sit for a
few more months, then fail when reinstalled in a different PC.

But that's been the way things have been going for me of late. A host
of trivial but time-wasting problems.


--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

Tim writes:

Yup sounds like a stuck drive. Those bigfoots did that a lot, as did the
earlier Seagates.

As mentioned by another, just rap the drive on it's side, and it should
let go. Be aware however, that the stuck head may pull off the magnetic
material when it breaks loose. Normally we did this as a last ditch
effort to get the data off of the drive before tossing it out.

Thank you for that. I had already backed up the drive (though I wish I
had also backed up all the partition tables, or done an image backup of
the entire drive) so I have the data.
If I can't find an explanation of the flash code, I'll try the rapping
technique.


--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

"Ian Field" writes:

I'm pretty sure that is a code for something - but you'll likely need to be
a tenacious googler to find out what.

Indeed. My crude attempts at isolating only relevant items didn't work
very well, and I got hundreds of Google hits.
Was kind of hoping that someone who reads this NG knew the answer.

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

lid (Mike) writes:

In article ,
Windmill wrote:
There's a little green SMD LED on the PCB which is steadily lit at
first

"Spinning up, hold on ..."

but which then begins to flash repeatedly in a pattern
of 8 flashes - short pause - 10 flashes.

"Error."

Old drives did that, as they weren't SMART capable and had no way
of communicating any kind of detail as to the error. The "blink code"
will tell you exactly what's wrong, if you can just decode what it
means.

The drive may not be spinning up, or may not be achieving full/stable speed
quick enough.

I can hope that it's something fixable, if I can just find a table
which explains the code.
As I mentioned, I have a vague and probably unreliable memeory of
seeing flash codes in the distant past, when I first hooked up the
drive.

BTW it has done very well indeed. Running almost continually for _years_ .
Is there a code for "You've had your money's worth"? :-)

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

Tim wrote:
In article , spam-no-
lid says...
I have an old 5.25" Quantum Bigfoot CY6.4 hard drive which I want to
use in an old PC.

It was working some months ago when I hooked it up to a USB adaptor on
a Ubuntu PC and backed up its contents.

But now it isn't recognized by the OS (various old Linux and new Ubuntu
Linux versions), neither on the old PC nor on the USB adaptor.

'dmesg' shows info for a different drive (which works), but nothing for
the Quantum drive.

There's a little green SMD LED on the PCB which is steadily lit at
first (and the BIOS displays its capacity, C/H/S, etc. so can obviously
read the drive) but which then begins to flash repeatedly in a pattern
of 8 flashes - short pause - 10 flashes.

Not sure if that could be something built into the firmware, or some
pattern of repeated access attempts by the kernel.

I've tried it jumpered as master and as slave, and with an old 40
conductor ribbon cable and a new 80 conductor cable, on its own and
with a CDROM drive. But nothing works.

I'm puzzled. Is the LED a disk activity light? There's something about
one I/O line being sometimes shared as a 'slave select' and a 'disk
activity' line, but I can't see what that would have to do with the
problem.

I have a very vague and possibly unreliable memory of having to tinker
a bit, or do something special, when the drive was new, but no clear
recollection.

Going to see if I can find any HD diagnostic program which might report
something, but meanwhile, does anyone know what the flash pattern
indicates?



Yup sounds like a stuck drive. Those bigfoots did that a lot, as did the
earlier Seagates.

As mentioned by another, just rap the drive on it's side, and it should
let go. Be aware however, that the stuck head may pull off the magnetic
material when it breaks loose. Normally we did this as a last ditch
effort to get the data off of the drive before tossing it out.

- Tim -

You mean tap the drive into the side of a trash can.

Oddly I have a 12GB bigfoot on my desk, I use to keep a pile of papers
from blowing away.

"Windmill" wrote in message
...
Ken writes:

Windmill wrote:
I have an old 5.25" Quantum Bigfoot CY6.4 hard drive which I want to
use in an old PC.

Do you hear the disk spinning when power is applied to it? Many old
drives, particularly those that have been sitting for a while, fail to
spin due to the heads sticking to the disk surface. I believe the term
is stiction or something like that. If it is not spinning apply power
and tap the edge of the drive sharply against the palm of your hand.
Sometimes that will break the heads loose.

A drive not spinning will not be detected.

I think you're probably correct. Can't hear anything except some
ticking noises.

I think some drives had a routine for head stiction, maybe as simple as
repeatedly trying to start up a set number of times, maybe trying
alternately trying to start bacwards a few times.

Could try repeated power cycling (start up routine) before clonking it one
to unstick the heads.

In article ,
Windmill wrote:

Thank you for that. I had already backed up the drive (though I wish I
had also backed up all the partition tables, or done an image backup of
the entire drive) so I have the data.
If I can't find an explanation of the flash code, I'll try the rapping
technique.

An approach I find more effective in dealing with "stiction" problems
in older hard drives (and somewhat gentler on the drive):

- Set it down gently, flat, on a smooth table-top.

- Grasp it on both longer sides (i.e. across its short axis) with
one hand.

- Rotate it sharply, without lifting it from the table, by "snapping"
your wrist.

Often, the inertia of the platters will "break free" whatever is stuck
(head-to-platter or shaft-to-bearings).

I agree with others, though... a drive which has stictioned itself
once is probably not to be trusted. If you get get it to spin up,
make another set of backups immediately. If you want to keep using
it, leave it spinning... it may stick again if it's powered down for
some time.


--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

"Dave Platt" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Windmill wrote:

Thank you for that. I had already backed up the drive (though I wish I
had also backed up all the partition tables, or done an image backup of
the entire drive) so I have the data.
If I can't find an explanation of the flash code, I'll try the rapping
technique.

An approach I find more effective in dealing with "stiction" problems
in older hard drives (and somewhat gentler on the drive):

- Set it down gently, flat, on a smooth table-top.

- Grasp it on both longer sides (i.e. across its short axis) with
one hand.

- Rotate it sharply, without lifting it from the table, by "snapping"
your wrist.

Often, the inertia of the platters will "break free" whatever is stuck
(head-to-platter or shaft-to-bearings).

I agree with others, though... a drive which has stictioned itself
once is probably not to be trusted. If you get get it to spin up,
make another set of backups immediately. If you want to keep using
it, leave it spinning... it may stick again if it's powered down for
some time.

Had a drive once I had to use longer cables and park it on the desk so I
could clout it with a screwdriver handle immediately after pressing the on
button.

Took a fair bit of skip raiding to find a replacement that started without
'help'.

In article ,
Windmill wrote:
I can hope that it's something fixable, if I can just find a table
which explains the code.

In the older days, I had a nice big ST506 MFM shoebox sized 5.25" full
height drive. It used to fail to spin up with a blink code.

Reason: one lousy transistor that was responsible for lifting the
"brakes" solenoid off the motor, used to go pop. Never did find out why.
Just replace and continue

--
--------------------------------------+------------------------------------
Mike Brown: mjb[-at-]signal11.org.uk | http://www.signal11.org.uk

--- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net/ - Complaints to ---

On Fri, 2 Dec 2011 13:17:46 GMT, lid
(Windmill) put finger to keyboard and composed:

If you disconnect one of the RAM buffer pins, does the LED pattern
change? Doing so should result in a Sector Buffer Error (error code
03h).

Not sure where I would do that. I haven't disassembled the drive and
don't have a full technical manual for it, and I'm not sure where I
would be able to disconnect (and then later reconnect) a single pin on
a tiny SMD.

There is a product manual in several parts he
ftp://ftp.octek.com.hk/UTILITY/UTILI...GFOOT/BG_CY_AT

There is a block diagram of the electronics in section 5.2 of chapter
5.

The DRAM is a 64K x 16 IC. You should be able to locate its datasheet.
I suggest you lift one of the data pins.

I have a database of datasheets he
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/HDD_RAM.html

Should the flash pattern be interpreted as hex code 8A ? Do you have
something which lists these codes, or a link to something which does? I
found some information by Googling, but nothing about error codes from
the LED.

FWIW, there are error codes listed for the ATA Execute Drive
Diagnostic command (section 6.7.7 of the manual). I don't know if they
bear any resemblance to your codes, but 8Xh indicates error number 0Xh
for drive #1 (slave).

If putting a fault on the DRAM results in a flash code of 83h, then
this would be consistent with the table of errors in the manual.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

On Fri, 2 Dec 2011 13:26:36 GMT, lid
(Windmill) put finger to keyboard and composed:

If I can't find an explanation of the flash code, I'll try the rapping
technique.

If the drive has a stiction fault, then you should see pulses at the
motor windings as the motor controller attempts to kickstart the
drive. I believe this is called "spin buzz".

Alternatively, there will probably be a current sense resistor, or an
array of parallel connected sense resistors, to sense the motor
current. You could measure the voltage at this point. Note that there
will also be a current sense resistor for the voice coil.

FWIW, here is my database of motor controller IC datasheets:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD...r_Control.html

I don't know if this tutorial will be of any help to you ...
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD...l_SP0411N.html

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

lid (Mike) writes:

In article ,
Windmill wrote:
I can hope that it's something fixable, if I can just find a table
which explains the code.

In the older days, I had a nice big ST506 MFM shoebox sized 5.25" full
height drive. It used to fail to spin up with a blink code.

Reason: one lousy transistor that was responsible for lifting the
"brakes" solenoid off the motor, used to go pop. Never did find out why.
Just replace and continue

I have the background & most of the equipment to do things like that
but not the technical info nor the ability to easily work on SMDs (need
newer reading glasses, steadier hands, and less absent-mindedness).
'Age I do abhor thee', as the man said.


--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

Franc Zabkar writes:

On Fri, 2 Dec 2011 13:26:36 GMT, lid
(Windmill) put finger to keyboard and composed:

If I can't find an explanation of the flash code, I'll try the rapping
technique.

If the drive has a stiction fault, then you should see pulses at the
motor windings as the motor controller attempts to kickstart the
drive. I believe this is called "spin buzz".

Alternatively, there will probably be a current sense resistor, or an
array of parallel connected sense resistors, to sense the motor
current. You could measure the voltage at this point. Note that there
will also be a current sense resistor for the voice coil.

FWIW, here is my database of motor controller IC datasheets:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD...r_Control.html

I don't know if this tutorial will be of any help to you ...
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD...l_SP0411N.html

That's a very impressive collation of information. I've kept a copy for
future reference, though hopefully I won't need it.
Used to work on ancient mainframes long ago, so in theory I can still
understand the details. If I can just find my glasses.


--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

Tim writes:

In article , spam-no-
says...
I have an old 5.25" Quantum Bigfoot CY6.4 hard drive which I want to
use in an old PC.

It was working some months ago when I hooked it up to a USB adaptor on
a Ubuntu PC and backed up its contents.

But now it isn't recognized by the OS (various old Linux and new Ubuntu
Linux versions), neither on the old PC nor on the USB adaptor.

'dmesg' shows info for a different drive (which works), but nothing for
the Quantum drive.

There's a little green SMD LED on the PCB which is steadily lit at
first (and the BIOS displays its capacity, C/H/S, etc. so can obviously
read the drive) but which then begins to flash repeatedly in a pattern
of 8 flashes - short pause - 10 flashes.

Not sure if that could be something built into the firmware, or some
pattern of repeated access attempts by the kernel.

I've tried it jumpered as master and as slave, and with an old 40
conductor ribbon cable and a new 80 conductor cable, on its own and
with a CDROM drive. But nothing works.

I'm puzzled. Is the LED a disk activity light? There's something about
one I/O line being sometimes shared as a 'slave select' and a 'disk
activity' line, but I can't see what that would have to do with the
problem.

I have a very vague and possibly unreliable memory of having to tinker
a bit, or do something special, when the drive was new, but no clear
recollection.

Going to see if I can find any HD diagnostic program which might report
something, but meanwhile, does anyone know what the flash pattern
indicates?



Yup sounds like a stuck drive. Those bigfoots did that a lot, as did the
earlier Seagates.

As mentioned by another, just rap the drive on it's side, and it should
let go. Be aware however, that the stuck head may pull off the magnetic
material when it breaks loose. Normally we did this as a last ditch
effort to get the data off of the drive before tossing it out.

I'll bear that in mind if the drive sticks again.
Was going to buy a small cheap drive to use for an old PC on which I
planned to run my first Windows system (so I could use a couple of old
programs which Wine can't handle). Then prices soared, so I dug out
this old Quantum drive.
It won't be a tragedy if I lose it completely.


--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

(Dave Platt) writes:

In article ,
Windmill wrote:

Thank you for that. I had already backed up the drive (though I wish I
had also backed up all the partition tables, or done an image backup of
the entire drive) so I have the data.
If I can't find an explanation of the flash code, I'll try the rapping
technique.

An approach I find more effective in dealing with "stiction" problems
in older hard drives (and somewhat gentler on the drive):

- Set it down gently, flat, on a smooth table-top.

- Grasp it on both longer sides (i.e. across its short axis) with
one hand.

- Rotate it sharply, without lifting it from the table, by "snapping"
your wrist.

Often, the inertia of the platters will "break free" whatever is stuck
(head-to-platter or shaft-to-bearings).

I agree with others, though... a drive which has stictioned itself
once is probably not to be trusted. If you get get it to spin up,
make another set of backups immediately. If you want to keep using
it, leave it spinning... it may stick again if it's powered down for
some time.


Many thanks. I held off on more violent unsticking methods until I
knew more, then used your method. Worked perfectly, with little force
needed.
--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

Cydrome Leader writes:

You mean tap the drive into the side of a trash can.

Oddly I have a 12GB bigfoot on my desk, I use to keep a pile of papers
from blowing away.

That was pretty much what I had in mind when I disconnected the drive a
few months back. But the floods in Thailand changed my mind.


--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

"Ian Field" writes:

Had a drive once I had to use longer cables and park it on the desk so I
could clout it with a screwdriver handle immediately after pressing the on
button.

Took a fair bit of skip raiding to find a replacement that started without
'help'.

Funnily enough the old PC it's going into came from the same place....


--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

On Tue, 6 Dec 2011 12:08:24 GMT, lid
(Windmill) put finger to keyboard and composed:

Used to work on ancient mainframes long ago ...

Ditto.

If I can just find my glasses.

That too.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

Thank you for this conversation and the hints. I have a Quantum drive that had sat for a few years and was giving me the 8+10 flashing. Giving it a tap got it to spin and allowed the BIOS to detect it. (although I think the drive is totally unreadable now - it had problems before but now will not even boot)

On Friday, December 2, 2011 at 5:26:36 AM UTC-8, Windmill wrote:

If I can't find an explanation of the flash code, I'll try the rapping
technique.

If it's not spinning, you want to rap it on a corner so that the drive is
twisted in the circumferential sense, relative to the platters.. The
most productive such rap is done a half-second after applying power
(it's useful to have a switchable power supply for this).

Once you get it up and spinning, there's a good prospect for it
to STAY spinning as long as you don't remove power, and
fair-to-middling chance of it starting again (the motor
is likely to care exactly in what pole-position phase it stops).