Re: Running AS/400 with cover off and care of Drives

[dhandy@xxxxxxxxxxx (Douglas Handy)]

David,

>Another question is Harddrive care--my model 500 has 18gig total
>2 x 6606, 2 x6607, 1x 6713.Are any of these models prone to sticking after
>long powerdwn periods.

Of these, I believe the 6606's have the most notorious problems with
"stiction".  But I think that also was limited to drives manufactured
during a certain period -- and I don't have the details on when that
period was.  

>I only powerup one day a week for aboubt 4 hours at a time

This is not directly related to your question, but as a reminder, if
you do only use the system occasionally, it is a good idea to use the
power on/off scheduler to make sure the system gets powered on every
week or two.  The reason is extended powerdowns can cause the system
to request a new system password under the assumption the system may
have been in storage then resold, invalidating a pre-V4 OS license.

Perhaps this is already why you power on once a week.  But if not, I
do recommend a power schedule to make sure you don't leave it off for
"too long", although I don't know the definition of "too long".

>stranglely
>enough he has recovered data for clients by carefuly taking apart and
>spinning by hand to give a quick start and then transfering the data on to
>another drive and throwing the damaged one away

Even simpler to try first:  physically tap on the drive as it is being
powered up (which on the 400 is not immediately after hitting the load
button).   I have successfully used this in the past to coerce a drive
to start spinning -- and then it seems to be fine until cooled off
again.

Doug
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