Date   : Tue, 12 May 2009 12:14:17 +0100
From   : michael.firth@... (michael.firth@...)
Subject: My Rodime Wont Spin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: 
> bbc-micro-bounces+michael.firth=bt.com@... 
> [mailto:bbc-micro-bounces+michael.firth=bt.com@...
> .uk] On Behalf Of Darren Grant
> Sent: 12 May 2009 11:35
> To: bbc-micro@...
> Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] My Rodime Wont Spin
> 
> The Apple dealership that I worked at a few years back the 
> service dept used
> to give a stuck drive a sharp tap on the top of the spindle 
> with the handle
> of a screwdriver and the drive would burst back to life.
>

Back in the 80s there was a batch of Rodime drives where the parking
brake would stick to the drive if it were left off for more than a
few weeks.
The symptom would be that the drive wouldn't spin up, and the red light
on the front would stay on as the system waited for the drive to become
ready.
The solution, as you say, was to tap the drive sharply on the side with
something hard when it was trying to spin up, and the brake would come free.

My experience was with Rodime 20MB drives in a strange Unix beast called
the Whitechapel MG1, but it was just a bog standard ST506 drive, so may
well have been used in other machines too.

Regards

Michael