DonutKing
Experienced Member
Hi,
I have an ST251 in my 286 machine which has been a bit temperamental lately.
It's quite erratic, you can hear it spin up on boot but occasionally it just won't get detected at POST.
Sometimes I'll be using it for an hour or so and i'll get a Seek Error or Sector Not Found, and the C drive becomes no longer available - then on reboot it won't get detected.
If I power off the machine at this point I hear it spin down and park the heads.
I know these drives are notorious for stiction but the fact that I can still hear it spinning makes me think this isn't the problem. I think its making all the right noises (these drives have some pretty unique noises so it can be hard to tell )
I did come across this page: http://home.earthlink.net/~z100lifeline/data/HDrive.html which suggests replacing the two 22uF surface mount caps near the power connector with 47uF ones. Has anyone heard of or tried this fix?
The guide suggests using electrolytic caps but I can get 47uF 20v surface mount tantalums which will fit a bit better, shouldn't be a problem if I use those should it? Soldering isn't a problem as I've done plenty of that before.
I took the controller board off to have a look, unfortunately I didn't make a note of which way the 10-pin cable attaches at the end of the board near the ribbon cable connecter before I removed it- every wire is a different colour and the connector isn't keyed. I don't suppose anyone could tell me the correct orientation for this connector? (The other cable near the middle of the board is keyed)
Thanks
I have an ST251 in my 286 machine which has been a bit temperamental lately.
It's quite erratic, you can hear it spin up on boot but occasionally it just won't get detected at POST.
Sometimes I'll be using it for an hour or so and i'll get a Seek Error or Sector Not Found, and the C drive becomes no longer available - then on reboot it won't get detected.
If I power off the machine at this point I hear it spin down and park the heads.
I know these drives are notorious for stiction but the fact that I can still hear it spinning makes me think this isn't the problem. I think its making all the right noises (these drives have some pretty unique noises so it can be hard to tell )
I did come across this page: http://home.earthlink.net/~z100lifeline/data/HDrive.html which suggests replacing the two 22uF surface mount caps near the power connector with 47uF ones. Has anyone heard of or tried this fix?
The guide suggests using electrolytic caps but I can get 47uF 20v surface mount tantalums which will fit a bit better, shouldn't be a problem if I use those should it? Soldering isn't a problem as I've done plenty of that before.
I took the controller board off to have a look, unfortunately I didn't make a note of which way the 10-pin cable attaches at the end of the board near the ribbon cable connecter before I removed it- every wire is a different colour and the connector isn't keyed. I don't suppose anyone could tell me the correct orientation for this connector? (The other cable near the middle of the board is keyed)
Thanks
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