As for my frozen bearing problem, my choice is to replace the bearing or transplant the drive platters into another hard drive. WHEW! is my opinion.
Now having opened up a similar bad Maxtor drive of same basic model, I can see this is a highly intricate task that would take a couple of special tools specifically designed for a few precision steps. It does look doable but I can see everything would need to be lined out to a T. Removal of the Armature hold-down mechanism would require a vice style grapple in order to remove it without it smacking back downward due to the pull from the powerful magnets. If this happened, I see it could easily smack onto the armature and ruin the heads in an instant. Secondly, another rubber gripped tool would need to be fashioned in order to tightly grab onto and pull up the platters all in one motion. Apparently the platters need to retain their alignment to one another through disassembly. But the hardest parts seems to be that both the platters and the armature need to be raised evenly with one another so as not to put 'any' pressure whatsoever on the heads. This is seriously complicated by the fact that the armature is held down by both a screw (easily accessible) but also receives the same powerful pull downwards by the lower armature magnet. Because of that, keeping the armature EXACTLY perpendicular to the platters so as to not bend one of the 6 floating heads is like microsurgery with one eye closed cause you can't fully view the underside heads. It seems doable if the armature and platters can be raised together. Therefore the two tools somehow need to be locked together. After that very major step, and a reverse process to rebuild, the rest, including bearing removal/replacement worked pretty smoothly on the dummy bad drive I tried. Maxtor did say that they would still honor my warranty if I had a qualified tech swap platters for me. So that's a plus and a preferred option. And it appears I either have the option of putting the platters with my data into a good drive or replacing the bearing in the bad drive with a good bearing. As for my performing such intricate surgery myself, I'm going to have to think this through some more. I may perform the operation on one or two more drives before I make a decision and figure out how to fashion the two tools needed, not to mention a small clean-box to do it all in. On the other hand, if I could find a qualified lab that works with internal drive components on a regular basis, and has the necessary equipment, I'd probably opt for that instead. It does not seem all that difficult with the right tools. So if anybody here on the list knows of such a person or business, I'd like to hear. It seems that since the bearing is pretty much frozen, not even a data retrieval company can access the drive w/o sending it out and performing a similar operation. So it seems getting the platters turning again is how this will be fixed. Heck, at least it could have been a challenge. :) Yeah Right. Dave s900 Maxtor Model 96147U8 -- SuperMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | Service & Replacement Parts [EMAIL PROTECTED] | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> SuperMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/supermacs/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/supermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
