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Best way to clear debris off a harddrive platter? (Quantum Q2040)

Pickelhaube808

Experienced Member
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Jan 13, 2023
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San Antonio, TX
This is a weird one. I recently picked up a Quantum Q2040 for cheap and it looks to be in pretty good condition... except for when I shine a flashlight on the top platter, I see that there is scattered debris that appears to be plastic "dust" sitting on it. I would assume that this is from the plastic housing decaying over time and dropping it on the platter, since all of the warranty seals are intact- it does not seem to have been opened at any time.

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(Note that the dust on the platter is the stuff that is in focus. The blurry "dust" is just cracks/imperfections in the plastic casing.)



So... what would be the safest way to clear this debris off the platter? Move the heads off the platter and spin it up to try to fling it off? Blow air through the filter at the top? Remove the warranty sticker on the side and blow filtered air through?

The heads have not yet crashed and the dust only appears to be on the top platter. While I have already accepted that this is already likely a loss, I am still willing to try things out that may make it better. Any help with this weird problem would be appreciated.
 
Are you sure the heads have not crashed? Sure looks like a spot on the first picture top right looks lighter colored like some of the oxide has been scraped off. I don't have a suggestion on how to clear this off. I had an RP06 drive years back that likely had deteriorating foam on the platters. I did spin it up with heads prevented from loading to try but I would never have been confident of getting it all.
 
Distilled water and microfibre cloth may work if you were able to remove the platters carefully. Personally I would just junk the drive into the parts bin.
 
Are you sure the heads have not crashed? Sure looks like a spot on the first picture top right looks lighter colored like some of the oxide has been scraped off.
Looks like the top platter has been scored about 2/3 way in from the outer edge. So, doorstop. :(
I can see why it would appear this way from the photo! The lighting angle is such that the light is refracted away from the round corner in the plastic housing, like how waves do so at the bottom of a pool.

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I've traced that dark line here, showing that it can't really be caused by a head crash.

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I can assure you that up close with a flashlight moving around, the platter is uniform and appears undamaged except for the specks of dust on top.
 
While that looks like dust, I'm wondering if this might actually be residue left behind from condensation. Looking closely, I see signs that the drive may have been exposed to long term humidity. If that is what it is, then it won't just blow off.
 
Ok, it sure looked like it had had a head crash. If not then that's good. What do you plan to do with it? If you wish to make it work again then I really can't offer
much as you'd have to open it which would allow dust in the air to contaminate the surface. Which would likely cause a real head crash. If you just want to clean it up then go with what others have suggested. Is there a way to spin it up and prevent the heads from loading? That might clean off some/most of it.
 
Update:

I bought the necessary parts from Mouser to replace some bad components on the control PCB and create the proper power cables for the drive. After all of that was done and I power the drive on, the heads all spaz around back and forth a little but are able to move freely and get to the head parking location, track 1171 on the edge of the platters. After relubricating the bearings for the drive motor, it is much more quiet now and I am able to let it sit and run for a while which is slowly removing the debris on the platter.

I have disconnected the control board though for this as for some reason, the heads wiggle back and forth with it connected. I have a feeling this is likely due to another bad component on the board, I have the wrong bias voltage for the chips (it says -7 to -16VDC OR -5V OPT and I am applying -5V), or it will stop doing that as soon as it is actually connected to some sort of controller in a PC.

Overall though, it is looking good and there have been no head crashes or concerning marks on the platters. Whether or not I will ever be able to read or write data off it, I don't know, but at least it is theoretically functional with the correct interface.
 
(it says -7 to -16VDC OR -5V OPT and I am applying -5V), or it will stop doing that as soon as it is actually connected to some sort of controller in a PC.
Did you set the jumper for which voltage are supplying? Its near the regulator. I think the heads stayed in place after power up movement and didn't need anything connected. Tried to test but looks like heads are stuck again on the bad rubber bumper.
 
Spaz around? I had a couple of those drives back a long, long, long, long time ago, and if the heads start randomly wondering around, causing occasional seek failures, the issue is likely those two honking large transistors that go to the stepper motor. As I recall, one of mine started doing that and swapping them with another drive let it work.

Adapting the pin outs will let you control it from and IBM PC MFM hard drive controller.

The line driver, or whatever it was, on their MFM data out line is different, but wiring in an RS422 driver chip (like some other MFM drives use), fixes that.

Also, these are 3000RPM drives, so a controller that is hard coded to use 17 sectors per track will not use the entire track. An AT-style MFM controller that lets you specify 21 sectors per track will use the entire track. There were a few 3000RPM 5.25" drives for IBM PCs.
 
Spaz around? I had a couple of those drives back a long, long, long, long time ago, and if the heads start randomly wondering around, causing occasional seek failures, the issue is likely those two honking large transistors that go to the stepper motor. As I recall, one of mine started doing that and swapping them with another drive let it work.

Adapting the pin outs will let you control it from and IBM PC MFM hard drive controller.

The line driver, or whatever it was, on their MFM data out line is different, but wiring in an RS422 driver chip (like some other MFM drives use), fixes that.

Also, these are 3000RPM drives, so a controller that is hard coded to use 17 sectors per track will not use the entire track. An AT-style MFM controller that lets you specify 21 sectors per track will use the entire track. There were a few 3000RPM 5.25" drives for IBM PCs.
This is some great information I was hoping to hear, thank you.

The wobbling consists of the heads going in and out about 1cm roughly 4 times per second.

You may be right about replacing the transistors, I am hoping some other complex control circuitry is not the problem - unplugging the control board while the drive is running stops the heads from moving. Plugging it in again makes them do the shake again.

I will definitely have to make an interface since you make it sound easier than I have read elsewhere. I have 34-pin to 50-pin floppy adapters, but I expect them to be wired completely differently. Not sure how I want to go about it, whether it be adapting a 50 pin ribbon cable down directly to the standard ribbon cable, or putting a board somewhere in between to make it a lot easier. Maybe I could even learn PCB design and create an easy board to be printed off by someone like oshpark. If that is the case, that would make it easier to incorporate the RS422 chip like you were saying and then I can make it freely available for other people to make.
 
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