What is Landing Zone

[Guest_imported]

I have a failed quantum fireball lct08 13gb hard drive...The symptoms of the failure is quite strange...I posted a message with subject line "Hard disk falire" on google's "comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage" newsgroup. The post is quite long and I tought I should post only the link here
(

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&th=5d78db74c921e68c

)
without brackets....(watch for line breaks with link)

I hope you could give me some ideas as to what went wrong with my drive....

Thank you very much in advance....

 

[prajapat]

Clearly the problem is with the drive and you may try following (be ready to throw the HDD whether you get you data or not)after normal tricks fail.
1. Put the drive at different angle like face down, face side and check it your software can get the data.
2. freeze the HDD and while its temperature in very low, try to recover the data.
for other tricks, mail me at monad@vsnl.com and I may send a file downloaded long time back containing tricks used by many people to recover data from such HDDs.
Best of the luck.

 

[Speccie]

Hmmm, NTTO... but I'll answer your question. A long time ago IBM developed disk drives that had a removable cartridge. Thes were quite large about 15 inches diameter and weighed about 10 pounds, contained the platters and read/write heads and a shutter door that sealed them for removal. These drives had a blank area near the centre where the heads landed and were latched when power was removed. Heads in use 'fly' above the surface. Known by most people as winchester drives. 3440 to IBM. Most PC drives use up ramps and latch the heads away from the platter and only release the heads when the circuits detect 'up to speed'. With a sudden power failure there is enough 'back emf' off the motor/platter to pull the heads back and latch them.

 

[edfair]

PC drives have heads that rest against the platters when they aren't turning. The landing zone was an area on the platter where the heads dropped as they lost their air bearing. Later drives have lighter heads and much lighter support parts that can land on active areas without damage.
Think there has been some discussion that the winchester might have come from the 30/30 designation (like the winchester rifle) of the 30mb fixed disk and the 30mb removable disk in the IBM 1416 disk unit. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Speccie]

Sorry Ed I disagree, modern heads are latched back. Winchester is the name of the IBM plant where this technology was developed. I do not rememeber a 1416 as a diskdrive..it was a removable print train cartridge for an IBM1403 line printer.

regards Michael.

Try here if you fancy some disk info.

http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/library/technolo.htm

 

[Snickle]

Fuel for the fire: back in the 286 and 386 days [probably earlier], hard drives used a latching relay to move the read/write heads and required a SIT command to park the heads before turning off the computer. Later drives use voice-coil relays that automatically park the heads when the drive loses power. 'Landing Zone' was a parameter needed for the older drives to tell it where to park the heads.

 

[Snickle]

Re my reply: I misspoke with the words 'latching relay', it should have been 'stepping relay'.

 

[edfair]

Don't recall IBM with a Winchester plant. You're right about the 1416. It's hard remembering the details from 41 years ago. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Speccie]

Ok Ed, truce.. I always thought the Winchester drive was called after Winchester England as its 3 miles from IBM Hursley who in the 70's was one of the 3 main disk research locations. The others being Sindelfingen in Germany and San Jose in California (Almaden & Los Gatos). Well some guy said no...its named after Winchester CA close to San Jose. So I'm a believer. (Prob an American said that, chuckle)
I just checked your profile...check mine and it all makes sense.

Michael

 

[edfair]

Yeah. One difference is I still service 024s and 029s. Retirement must be nice.
Was it 2314s or maybe 2311s? Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Speccie]

Hi Ed, Havent seen a punch or verifier for years, I still have about 1 doz punch cards for cleaning contacts. The 2311 and 2314 with the 2841 controller were old design heads with hydraulic actuator. The 3330's had that enormous magnet and voice coil motor. The 3340 I think were the new thin film heads that landed and I thought that was the first radial linear motor known as winchester and the first one we didnt replace individual heads. My memory is getting rusty over the device numbers.

Take care, Michael