Hitachi Notebook Drive Fails to Spin Up

[Keith Johnson]

Hi -

I have an Hitachi DK23DA-30F notebook drive (30Gb) which will no longer
spin up. I suspect it's spindle stiction - the unit got pretty hot
during the warm weather, and the problem first manifested itself as
failing disk accesses, with the drive spontaneously spinning down and
then restarting. The day after this happened it refused to spin up, so
maybe the heat has driven the lubricant out of the bearing and it's now
sticking.

Just wondered if anyone had any experience with opening these drives or
with this particular problem.

The drive is still under warranty, but I'd like to get the data off it
if possible. In an ideal world Hitachi would give me a replacement and
also give me back the original drive to work on, but in the absence of
this I might just have to try and get the data back and forget about the
warranty.

TIA,

Keith

 

[Rod Speed]

I have an Hitachi DK23DA-30F notebook drive (30Gb)
which will no longer spin up. I suspect it's spindle stiction
- the unit got pretty hot during the warm weather, and the
problem first manifested itself as failing disk accesses, with
the drive spontaneously spinning down and then restarting.

Thats not what stiction is. Stiction is the heads sticking to
the platters when the drive is stopped and that preventing
the platters rotating at all when the drive is spun up next time.

The effect you are seeing can be due to bad power, or the
drive itself shutting down and restarting for whatever reason,
even just a brain fart on that being appropriate because its
decided that it has been told to do that etc. It can also just
be due to a gradual failure of what drives the rotation motor.

The day after this happened it refused to spin
up, so maybe the heat has driven the lubricant
out of the bearing and it's now sticking.

Thats not what stiction is and thats not how bearings fail either.

Just wondered if anyone had any experience with
opening these drives or with this particular problem.

The drive is still under warranty, but I'd like to get the data
off it if possible. In an ideal world Hitachi would give me a
replacement and also give me back the original drive to work on,

In the real world, if you dont have the data adequately backed
up, you get to wear the fact that you wont get it replaced.

but in the absence of this I might just have to try
and get the data back and forget about the warranty.

You could try a logic card swap to see if its the electronics
that drives the rotation motor that has failed.