Date   : Tue, 12 May 2009 07:29:50 -0500
From   : jules.richardson99@... (Jules Richardson)
Subject: My Rodime Wont Spin

Julian Stenning wrote:
> The drive has always been very noisy with the bearing/motor sounding 'dry'

Sometimes that's just a little anti-static metal tab which presses onto the 
end of the drive spindle on the underside - you can bend it out of the way to 
test.

> and now it seems its too stiff to spin. I can turn it manually, but that's
> not enough to get it going. Has anyone had experience of dismantling &
> servicing these things, or is it a bin-job?

As someone else mentioned, there's probably a spindle brake - you can possibly 
see it as it's often external to the sealed HDA. It should release (often with 
a loud click) as the drive powers up, but I'm not sure quite where in the 
power-on sequence it happens (i.e. if it just runs direct from the power rails 
and so should always release with power applied, or if it's under logic 
control and the drive firmware does other checks first).

If you can get to the brake you might be able to manually disable it and at 
least check that the drive spins.

As with Michael F. my main experience with these drives has been with 
Whitechapel MG/CG machines - and not exactly a good one. They really are 
pieces of junk, sadly :-(

cheers

Jules