Similar situation. True story from the early 80s and I'm being purposely vague as to who/where to protect the victims. Non-IBM datacenter (one of the bunch for those who remember) removable disk drives in a computer room that had normal ceiling tile - you know the ones that are always flaking particles off them. 5 of these drives, and backup-to-disk (tape was considered too expensive to purchase the equipment). Yup, $600 disk packs were more economical than $10 tapes because we already had the disk drives. 4 were used for productive use and the 5th the backup target.
Anyway, operator got I/O error on the backup drive, removed the pack and put a second pack on the drive. Got another I/O error so powered down one of the production drives and put the now-crashed pack on the drive. Got I/O error on this drive as well. Put production pack back on drive and went to third drive. Rinse and repeat. He then decided to call - me. After telling him to slowly back away from the equipment and not touch anything I went in. Final count, 4 dead packs, 3 drives, half our production data and all load modules. Yup, the decision had been made (not by me) to not back up load modules because if we lost any we could just recompile. 20 heads per drive and 19 were crashed. Vendor had to fly disk heads in from all across the country but within 24 hours we were back up and running. Took a couple weeks to get everything recovered that was recoverable. Not long after that, fixed drives and a tape backup system were on order. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Jesse 1 Robinson Sent: Saturday, April 13, 2019 1:19 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [External] Re: Incoming | Computerworld SHARK TANK Legendary--possibly apocryphal--story of the of the 3330 pack that got warped enough to ruin heads but did not itself disintegrate. Over zealous operator moved the pack from one drive to another looking for an operable one. Until they were all dead. True or not, nobody misses those days. . . J.O.Skip Robinson Southern California Edison Company Electric Dragon Team Paddler SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager 323-715-0595 Mobile 626-543-6132 Office ⇐=== NEW [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Tom Brennan Sent: Saturday, April 13, 2019 10:27 AM To: [email protected] Subject: (External):Re: Incoming | Computerworld SHARK TANK Interesting story! The only time I've actually seen a head crash was on an old 3330 where I had just popped in a RES pack. I walked over to the hardware console to IPL - the old 3270 where you had to type L1/A2 or whatever those commands were. The hardware console told me I had an I/O error, and there was a red light on the device. I pushed the button to open the 3330 drawer and there were bits of disk head all over the inside. On 4/13/2019 9:16 AM, Gabe Goldberg wrote: > Many years ago I had friends in old DEC building in Maynard, MA. They > had story of periodic head crashes on monster disk drives with > vertically spinning platters. They realized cause: trucks backing into > loading dock hitting and shaking the building -- since platters were > oriented perpendicular to truck motion. Solution: turn drives 90 > degrees to align platters with truck motion. At worst, I/O errors but > no head crashes (I guess heads flew much higher than on today's > devices). I'll ask veterans I know of that time/place to confirm... > > ITschak Mugzach<[email protected]> said: > > That reminds me another story. ten years ago a client of us installed > a new hitachi disk array. The technician installed and configured the > array, but for some reasons, it was not immediately used by the > client. few days later, the client tried to connect to the array and > it was down. it was repeatedly don everyday afterwards. investigation > showed that the the people who cleans the computer room unplugged the > power for the vacuum cleaner... The array was using a standard power plug. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN The information contained in this message is confidential, protected from disclosure and may be legally privileged. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, distribution, copying, or any action taken or action omitted in reliance on it, is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to this message and destroy the material in its entirety, whether in electronic or hard copy format. Thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
