Maxtor locked up & only plays a brief scratchy song

[oldmaxtor]

Hello Gurus,

I have an old Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 80GB SATA / 150HDD with a mfg. date 20 yrs ago last month.

It stopped working, I've taken the top cover off, the r/w head don't have a little landing spot off to the side, they appear to land on platter towards the inside edge.

They are not stuck, however, the platters do not move, will not move, seem to be locked in place.

If I put power to it, the r/w head moves towards the center and then the drive plays a little tune (music, dudly, dudly, dudchhchh). Might be the Maxtor ghost song I've read about.

Should the platters be able to spin by hand, with or without power?

Thanks.

[HaQue]

yes they should

[oldmaxtor]

Do you think that maybe there is an electronic lock to prevent the platter from moving when powered off because the r/w head lands on the platter itself when off?

Maybe power to the "lock" or the motor itself has a blown fuse?
I'll start probing for continuity but maybe a guru has some insight on this specific era of Maxtor?

Thanks

[HaQue]

the only thing I have heard of is a spinup jumper on old Maxtors. jumper on means drive spins up straightaway at power-up and jumper off means the drive needs a command and then spins up. But this would be old systems where drives need to be powered up in an order. I am no HDD tech though and limited knowledge. I would think an electronic lock would need power to work in any case.

I think I have some old maxtors at home... if I remember i will go take a look.

[oldmaxtor]

Thanks, it seems to be a somewhat known problem. This copied from another website even mentions the music it plays:

"This problem is pretty common for hard drives manufactured by Seagate, Maxtor and Toshiba (less commonly – Hitachi). Drive’s spindle will not spin up making a distinctive buzzing or humming sound on power-up. Stuck Maxtor drives are even performing weird tunes, so-called “dead Maxtor song”. The reason for drive’s spindle being stuck is either bent/damaged axis or partial destruction of sleeve bearing. Usually drives don’t get stuck by themselves but due to some mechanical impact (even a minor shock). Anyways the fact that some drives are significantly more subject to spindle seizure than others indicates flaws in motor design, they are simply not enough “shock-proof”. Drive affected by seized motor problem is not registered in computer’s OS and not visible in the BIOS. Data recovery from seized spindle drives is usually performed by replanting magnetic platters from original drive onto compatible donor drive."

It's probably done unless sent in for a transplant.

[pepe]

they are simply not enough “shock-proof”.

that's weird, a shock that damages the spindle also damages surface, so even if spindle haven't had gone stuck, there would be problems with surfaces and heads.
Some old tosh drives tended to develop bearing problems on their own (fluid escaped somehow and bearing started rattling or seized completely) , others rarely got stuck without external shock. A drive of 20+ years old can develop any kind of fault.