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ST412 bearing trouble?

Roland Huisman

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 24, 2011
Messages
1,464
Location
The Netherlands
Hello everyone,

I have an ST412 which works fine, an has no bad sectors.
When it is running for a while sometimes you hear very loud:
MMRRAAAWWWWWWWWWW coming of the spindle motor.
You hear it for several seconds and dissapears...

I think it is the bearing which had it's best days.
Is there any way to fix this? Maybe some oil?

Greetings, Roland
 
Yes - I've seen this a fair amount. I think it has to do with the grease/oil in the bearings drying out. Unfortunately, there's really no way I know of to oil it, as the mechanism is sealed, and you can't even get to the motor without completely disassembling the HDA.

One trick I've done, which works fairly often, is to take the drive out, flip it upside down, and put it back in - then run the machine like that for a couple of days. The drive generates some amount of heat as it runs, and with the drive upside down, that'll encourage the grease to redistribute itself inside the bearing race.

I've done this on several drives and it's quieted them down a fair amount.

-Ian
 
I don't know if it's the case with the ST412, but the Seagate Wren II drives have a little graphite pad on the bottom that contacts the tail of the spindle shaft and (I've been told) acts as a brush to keep the spindle grounded and static-free. This gets dirty, and screams like a banshee (to the point that it's impossible to be in the same room as the machine...my XT sat mostly unused for a long time due to this). You can take a little crocus cloth (really fine sandpaper works too) and clean both the tail of the spindle shaft and the graphite pad, and the squeal will go away.
 
I don't know if it's the case with the ST412, but the Seagate Wren II drives have a little graphite pad on the bottom that contacts the tail of the spindle shaft and (I've been told) acts as a brush to keep the spindle grounded and static-free. This gets dirty, and screams like a banshee

Yes, I've seen this many times as well. You can also remove that little springy pad - I've never seen a problem with running a drive without the pad, but it is nice to clean it and keep it there. But that's more of a SKREEeeEeeeEEEeeeeEEEEEEEE sound, and the OP reported a MMRRAAAWWWWWWWWWW - which is closer to bearing noise.

:D

The bearings sometimes make a really weird pinging and rattling noise - again, I think it has to do with the solidified lubricant. Warming up the bottom of the drive with a hair dryer might also speed the process along, but I've not tried it. (assuming, of course, that it's not the grounding spring, in which case, the OP needs to work on his onomatopoeia <grin>)

-Ian
 
Below is a photo of the underside of a ST-412, with the base of the spindle exposed.

The blue bar is the spindle grounding bar that the others have referred to.

I've successfully used WD-40 in the past to quiet spindle-noisy drives. Its penetration abilities are good and it leaves behind a little lubricant. But it's not much lubricant, because the drives that I've treated need reapplication after about a year.

Chuck(G) suggests the use of white lithium grease, in aerosol form.

Whatever the lubricant, I keep in the back of my mind that the liquid lubricant may make its way to the platter/head chamber and do some damage there. Therefore, I only treat drives when they get 'real' bad.

repaired_ST412.JPG
 
I've successfully used WD-40 in the past to quiet spindle-noisy drives. Its penetration abilities are good and it leaves behind a little lubricant. But it's not much lubricant, because the drives that I've treated need reapplication after about a year.

Hi, modem7. This is exactly my drive. I have everything ready as per your picture. Main board removed. Upside down. Where should I now apply the wd40? Thanx!
 
Hi, modem7. This is exactly my drive. I have everything ready as per your picture. Main board removed. Upside down. Where should I now apply the wd40? Thanx!
It is easier to point out using the photo below (an ST-225). The area in green is a channel. The ST-412 has a similar channel. I place a liberal amount of WD-40 in the channel and let it sit there (drive upside down) for a few hours, usually overnight. Afterwards, I then empty the channel of the remaining WD-40 (which is the bulk of what I had put in).

DISCLAIMER: There is a risk of damage to the drive.
DISCLAIMER: Your house may smell of WD-40 for a few days. I will not accept blame from your girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband.


st225_spindle.jpg
 
WD-40 is not, stricly speaking, a lubricant. It's mostly a mixture of penetrating oil and Stoddard solvent--its notable characteristic is that it will displace water. If you want to oil something, get oil. A lightweight sewing-machine oil will probably do the trick.
 
WD-40 is not, stricly speaking, a lubricant. It's mostly a mixture of penetrating oil and Stoddard solvent--its notable characteristic is that it will displace water. If you want to oil something, get oil. A lightweight sewing-machine oil will probably do the trick.
I've tried light machine oil in the past and found that it was unsuccesful for me.

According to Wikipedia, the U.S. Material Safety Data Sheet on WD-40 indicates a 15% mineral oil content, and "The long-term active ingredient is a non-volatile, viscous oil which remains on the surface, providing lubrication and protection from moisture." Yes, I know that is Wikipedia I'm quoting, and not an authorative source.

I'm guessing that it's WD-40's penetration abilities that makes it successful for this application. Of course, who knows what the solvent portion of WD-40 is doing. It could be destroying what little manufacturer-installed lubricant remains on the bearings.

But it works for me, and due to the possible damage, I only use it when a drive gets 'real bad'.

What I have not tried is your other suggestion of "white lithium grease, in aerosol form". If that works, then that is a better solution than WD-40. Maybe Chris_in_Japan (and others) can try that and report back on the results.
 
DISCLAIMER: There is a risk of damage to the drive.
DISCLAIMER: Your house may smell of WD-40 for a few days. I will not accept blame from your girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband.


st225_spindle.jpg

The drive was declared dead and accordingly I gladly offer it to the community for "experimentation"!

I "filled" the channel with wd40 and "enriched" it with some drops of light oil. I will leave it all night long, remove the excess and make a try. I will check both acoustics and function and report back!

Thanks!
 
So that people know my view of this subject:

Background

The perfect solution is use the manufacturer's 'Bearing Replacement' section in the service manual. But such a section does not exist, because these drives (designed for personal computers) were not intended to be mechanically serviced in their expected lifetime.

The next best thing might be to dismantle the drive in a 'clean room', then replacing the bearing assembly, or relubricating the bearing assembly (if possible). But, what is the part number of a replacement bearing assembly? It won't be in the service manual. If you do get the part number, are they still available (and at what cost)? If relubricating, what is the spec of the lubrication to be used? It won't be in the service manual. Using the wrong lubrication can result in overheated bearings, thus stressing them. Is it important to remove all old lubrication first? Where does one find a 'clean room'?

Okay. So I managed to find answers to all of the above for my particular make/model of drive. So what's the procedure to disassemble the drive?

Let's face it. The majority of forum readers will look at all of the above and then say, "too hard".

So what is desired is a relatively simple workaround that is within the ability of most forum readers, and because of the risks, only applied at the point where a drive has become unusable or is about to become unusable. Because of that, the workaround does not have to be perfect, or meet manufacturer's requirements.

WD-40

This solution works for me, and no doubt will for others.

I acknowledge that there may be better solutions that fall in the category of my above, "a relatively simple workaround". There are suggestions, but no responses of, "I tried that and it worked."


Other workarounds

We are dependent on people experimenting and then posting results.

Maybe the 'white lithium grease, in aerosol form' method will work. Maybe light machine oil works, but it has to sit in place for a week, instead of hours. Maybe both will work if the drive is warmed in an oven to facilitate penetration.

I'm happy with WD-40 and so I don't intend to do any further experimentation in this area.



DUTY OF DISCLOSURE: Conflict of interest. The WD-40 company is my employer. :)

DISCLAIMER: Claims that I put WD-40 on my breakfast cereal are not entirely true.
 
Well. The "bath" with wd40 and some drops of light oil (sewing machine) indeed greatly reduced the grinding noises I had in the Seagate ST-412.

This did not solve my problem of the hdd not being detected but I am far away of being able to say if it is the hdd, or the xebec controller or even the cables!

Continues to puzzle me that even if the hdd spins "aparently fine" the hdd is "dead". I mean reporting 1701, red led not lighting at all as I would have it fully disconnected from the controller card!

My immediate suspect (and hope) were the cables but I checked continuity pin by pin and everything seems ok there.

I had but this progressive degradation with firstly 1701 but being able to anyway read the hdd, then not being able to read it anymore buy having the hdd led blinking once at the (failed) booting process and finally nothing at all - everything while the grinding noises were getting louder and louder in the hdd, leading me to this thread.

I can't wait to get the second Seagate ST-412 I bought to finally know if it is the hdd! But I still have the damn problem of not being able to find a copy of DOS 2.0 or 3.3 in 5.25"/360KB discs to perform the needed low level format in the new drive! I lost everything in the Seagate and idiot of me I did no back-up copies... :(
 
But I still have the damn problem of not being able to find a copy of DOS 2.0 or 3.3 in 5.25"/360KB discs to perform the needed low level format in the new drive! I lost everything in the Seagate and idiot of me I did no back-up copies... :(
FWIW, DOS does *not* do a LLF. You need a third party utility or Debug (from any DOS version) to do that.
 
I just found an MS-DOS 3.30. Let me verify I understood properly: in this OS I will do find DEBUG as one of the many commands, or am I wrong?
AFAIK DEBUG has been included in pretty well every version of DOS and Windows.

But if the data on that drive is important I'd wait until you get the new drive before trying anything that tries to write to the drive; the fact that the LED doesn't blink suggests that the problem may be in the controller or the drive's pcb and that the data on the actual platters just might still be recoverable.
 
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AFAIK DEBUG has been included in pretty well every version of DOS and Windows.

But if the data on that drive is important I'd wait until you get the new drive before trying anything that tries to write to the drive; the fact that the LED doesn't blink suggests that the problem may be in the controller or the drive's pcb and that the data on the actual platters is still recoverable.

Hi, mike.

Duly noted - I will do so.

Because I am on this subject the perfect dummy I had "no option" to procure a second seagate, a second xebec, a second set of cables and a DOS. I hope to be able with this to switch devices until I found where the root cause is.

Was certainly not the initial idea but I failed so far to diagnose something with the existing hardware... I was not even able to know if the hdd or the controller is the cause! Quite deceiving...

The low level format is targeted only for the "new" seagate. The "old" one will be kept for the next generations with the early Larry's, Space Invaders, Prince of Persia and Flight Simulators in it! The archeologists will be delighted in 500 years with this find...

:)
 
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