Is it NT? Or is it the Hard Disk?

[ToGr82B4Gotn]

OK, I have a quick question fo yall's.

First of all I have been an MCSE since NT4.0, and have been a computer geek since 1975 when I built my first S100 buss computer with a whopping 1k of RAM, and nothing but switches and LED's for I/O.

We have several (140) NC machines setup here with PC's that use NT4.0.

Here is the troubs.

Occasionally the PC's get the BSOD, and they are rebooted.

1 time in 20 however, the hard disk is trashed. The good old trashed files from an improper shutdown. The Vendor who supplies these PC's is trying to tell me theree is an industry wide issue concerning hard drives and the bearings they are made with. Supposedly, the drives need to be spun down for 5 minutes every 24 hours to prevent the buildup of airbubbles in the bearing lubricant. btw these are 20 or 23 GB 2.5 in HDD's. I would appreciate the feedback if anyone else has heard of this.

Is it BullS*t I am smelling?

or did someone fart?

[valter]

I've heard bunch of crap regarding hard drives but this one, never lol why 24 hours? lol ... anyway, if that's true, then how comes old server built on IDE tehcnology can still work for months in the row ...

[IcemanND]

air bubbles in bearing lubricant? I think he has air buubles on the brain.

[valter]

air bubbles in bearing lubricant?  I think he has air buubles on the brain.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

lol, big time

[fdv]

Trashed _files_ on the HD, right?

Well anyway more info on air bubbles in drive bearing lubricant.

IDE drives are known to be far less hardy then SCSI, which I use in an NT4 environment, but with all that, that would be an expensive proposition for you.

Not that it would really be all that relevant as long as you have SP6a, but just humor me: you're running all hotfixes, yes? (If so you have my admiration for the patience to apply all, what, 200 of them?)

I really want to know is it file corruption or do the drives fail to boot?

Boot failure in an IDE, as has been cited many times at Slashdot (like here for example), is due often to heat issues. Heat dissipation on disk drives kind of makes a lot of us old-school guys scratch our heads (well, maybe just makes me wonder) but I had a really hard time believing that drive technology had changed so much since the advent of the "modern" IDE drive in 1988 or so. Perhaps I'm assuming too much when you note you're old school, I dunno. But that aside, have you adjusted for proper cooling of the drives? There is proper airflow of course, but then there is:

this

or

this

and then, of course, there's crazy.

More random info

A Polyester drive lubricant

Will we ever see huge capacity flash drives with no moving parts?

I've run out of time to search Slashdot but this is I think a good start for you?

[dman]

s100 bus huh? I wrote my first flexbasic program in 1980 on ss-50 bus swtpc

http://oldcomputers.net/swtpc-s09.html

I think many on this board have never seen a i486, let alone these dinasaurs. Remember the sheer joy of your first 8 inch floppy? or 5 MB hard drive?

[IcemanND]

I may not be an old geezer like you two, but I started on a TRS-80 model 1 (type2). Man I loved that machine, you couldn't kill it and it had a direct connection to the io bus available on the left side of the expansion interface. Those were the days, when you needed a whole desk just for the computer and another for your phone and other stuff.

[dman]

@Iceman,

sorry to break it to you, but if you had trs-80 you are geezer too.

[IcemanND]

just not an OLD geezer, didn't even know what s100 or ss-50 was until I say them in the museum cabinets at my work.

[Marsden]

Real tough to have air bubbles in a vacum...

HDs throw bad blocks all the time. Scan the disks for errors.

[dman]

@Iceman

In my defense, the ss-50 was old, and I was young. Ain't quite ready for false teeth and depends... yet