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Magetic hard drive?

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by rcom 2 views

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Here's a good one. Has anyone out there dealt with a hard drive that has a magnetic area on the outside of the drive. The part that's magnitized is the just below and somewhat around the smaller circle on the lower left of the drive. It's great for picking up screws but that's about it. The drive spins up and then spins right back down. Sorry I don't have more info about the drive, it's a Maxtor OEM so there's no label. The controller board says Orion_6L_ELU2, there's a barcode label that has J8Z0062D and DJ08P1. I think the first number has a date code of 2/6/00? On the receipt the size is 14GB but the place where he got the computer isn't the most trustworthy dealer in town. The drive was purchased in a used non-OEM system.

Any suggestions?

14 replies

by guruofdos

And what is so unusual about this?!!!

The armature has a permanent magnet and so does the platter motor!Put a duff hard drive on a bench...sprinkle a few case screws over the top and some of them will stick! The drive is stuffed - the magnetism is irrelevant and unrelated!

by rcom

No! say it aint so hard drives are actually magnetic? Anyway I sprinkled a bunch of case screws on the drive and it held over 60 in the 1 1/2 inch area above the spindle. Turn it over, shake and only a few will come off. This isn't normal. I wasn't concerned if this was the cause of the failure just wondered if anyone had experienced this phenom.

by thechas

Guro of DOS is correct, the fact that part of the drive is magnitized does not in itself indicate a problem.

In the boot sequence, it is common for the drive to spin up as part of it's own selftest.
If the drive is not accessed, the drive will spin back down.

Does the BIOS recognize the drive?

How about if you boot from a Windows startup disk and run fdisk?
Does fdisk report the drive?

I have yet to buy a used drive from a commercial source that did not need to be partitioned before use.

Chas

by csmith

OOps,
Sorry about the bad URL.
That webpage is specific. (We are a VAR)
No Problem.
You can get there by going to www.maxtor.com
It is just going to take more clicks.
click on Support (Above the motorcycle picture)
click on Knowledge Base (Left side of page)
click on Search the Knowedge Base
click on Subject # 3 (How to locate Serial Number and GTLA Number)
Start with Answer ID 1057, and then read all other answers on page.

Go back to Subject page.
Type in "Troubleshooting Hard Drive Spin Problems"
click on Search
A detailed answer with this name should be the first option.
There is too much info for me to cut and paste with the 1930 character limit of TR answers.

Regards, Chris

by thechas

Just a comment for Chris on the long link he posted.

If you use the web site www.tinyurl.com
they will create a short easy to post and copy web link.

Gets away from all the spaces that get added by TR when a long link folds around several lines.

Chas

by rcom

Chas, the points for this go to you because you provided the only info that was helpful. And I forgot about this question since it wasn't anything critical just more curious than anything else. Plus we were both qouted in the same article published here on tech republic. Keep up the good work

by stuart_at_oz

Magnetism is normal - I pulled apart an old (OLD!) IBM drive and it contained one of the most powerful magnets I have ever seen. I it wasn't for the curved assembly it is mounted on, I would not be able to remove it from a steel surface.

standard PC type harddrives are not going to have anything as strong as that, but I do not find the level of magnetism you are describing as suprising.

It sounds more like the control circuitry on the HDD is not working.

(The old HDD also yielded 2mirror perfect platters!)
Stu

by rcom

The issue is the magetism has increased dramatically and is way and I mean "WAY" !!! more than any other drive I've ever dealt with. Is there an explaination for this?

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