DirkR

Hi All, I'm trying to figure whether I have the problem described here or not, so whether it makes sense for me to try the solutions described here. I have a couple 7200.11 for occasional backup, i.e. most of the time they are powered down on the shelf. I use them in an external disc enclose (toaster), so I don't need cases for all of them. Now one of them is doing the following: on power-up it spins up and I can hear heads clicking. The clicking persists for 30 seconds (10 tries), after which the disc spins down and is inaccessible. In the syslog (this is on Linux, Fedora 14) I see the following (the first part is normal for switching discs in the toaster): Feb 24 09:28:34 destiny kernel: [1799439.032641] ata6: exception Emask 0x10 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x4050002 action 0xe frozen Feb 24 09:28:34 destiny kernel: [1799439.032647] ata6: irq_stat 0x00000040, connection status changed Feb 24 09:28:34 destiny kernel: [1799439.032652] ata6: SError: { RecovComm PHYRdyChg CommWake DevExch } Feb 24 09:28:34 destiny kernel: [1799439.032662] ata6: hard resetting link ... Feb 24 09:28:59 destiny kernel: [1799464.777348] ata6: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0) Feb 24 09:29:00 destiny kernel: [1799465.693551] ata6: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300) Feb 24 09:29:05 destiny kernel: [1799470.683619] ata6.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xec) Feb 24 09:29:05 destiny kernel: [1799470.683631] ata6.00: failed to IDENTIFY (I/O error, err_mask=0x4) Feb 24 09:29:05 destiny kernel: [1799470.683638] ata6: hard resetting link Feb 24 09:29:06 destiny kernel: [1799470.988021] ata6: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300) Feb 24 09:29:11 destiny kernel: [1799475.970027] ata6.00: failed to IDENTIFY (I/O error, err_mask=0x100) Feb 24 09:29:11 destiny kernel: [1799475.970064] ata6: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps Feb 24 09:29:11 destiny kernel: [1799475.978140] ata6: hard resetting link Feb 24 09:29:11 destiny kernel: [1799476.282550] ata6: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 310) Feb 24 09:29:11 destiny kernel: [1799476.282561] ata6: EH complete Does this sound familiar to anybody? Are these the BSY symptoms, or does this sounds more like jammed heads or something else physical? Many years ago I remember seeing comments about heads getting stuck in the lubricant of the platters, and given that the disk has been unpowered for a couple months I think something physical would be possible, even though I wouldn't expect to see it nowadays. Any hints welcome!