Worn out hard drive

[Shocko]

Ok, simple question.
Just bought a Sun Sparcstation Classic of ebay the other week. Getting the other bits i need for it this week, so can't use it untill then. However, i powered her up headless just to check that it works ok. Everything seemed fine, but i think the hard drives about had it.

I don't know anything hard drives, or about mechanics for that matter, but it sounded to me like the bearing was about worn out. The noise it made was fairly high pitched/whiney, and constant, even during heavy disk access(there appears to be an OS on there, as i could hear fsck doing its thing. Obviously i'm not the only one to test it like this). I reckon it's ok for now, but i'm thinking it might be worth getting a new(second hand) hd for it whenever the oportunity presents itself. If it's on its last legs, will the sound get worse(more high pitched/strained) as it reaches the end? If it does die, will it just stop working, or will it start making proper horrible noises? Or, am i completely wrong? If the hd is original(have no idea if it is), then it's about 10yrs old, and baring mind this is a unix workstation, it could well have been left on 24/7/52 for some of that... Is it infact sounding healthy for such a potentially old/used hd?

It's not a worry as i'm sure it wont die just yet, but it'd be nice to know whether i need to be on the lookout for a replacement

 

[TdC]

Shocklet, I have a sparcstation4, and the drive in there vibrates something awful tbh. If you're lucky you may have solaris in there somewhere, but tbh I'd advise installing NetBSD on it. If your hdd craps out, I still have some old scsi drives around the house. Let me know what type you need, and I'll see what can happen

 

[Shocko]

Well, the online Sun manual says a 3.5inch, 50pin scsi. Looking on the replacement part list, the specific models are:

207-Mbyte   Internal Disk Drive   370-1417
424-Mbyte   Internal Disk Drive   370-1392
535-Mbyte   Internal Disk Drive   370-1424
1.0-Gbyte   Internal Disk Drive   370-1546

I should be alright for now though. If i don't leave it on permanently, then it'll probably be fine for months or something They're pretty solid little things...

I was thinking about getting Debian on it, as i know Linux already, and i've heard Debian runs pretty well on old sparcs... I'm not 100% set on that, but i don't think it makes *that* much differance. I shan't be running X, and it isn't going to be a server, so once i get a net connection sorted out(tap into my dad's cable ), i'll probably only using a few programmes(irc, lynx, emacs..). Although, if it's only got a small disc in it(not sure atm), then perhaps i'll have to give emacs a miss

 

[TdC]

well, linux will work just fine too iirc I have a 512m and 1gb drive here, but they haven't been powered up in two years or so. if you find yourself needing one give me a shout.
sparcstations are extremely solid things, and I have a mate who has several classics, 4's and 5's running, some of which are quite 'classic' indeed
my personal 4 has a 2gb drive running netbsd, and 2gb is just too small to do OS upgrades (but only just). it's uber fast in certain operations, faster than my p166 firewall for instance in compiling but slow in others like SSH hash computations. if I connect to it it takes over a minute to compute the handshakes I love it to bits though

 

[Shocko]

Ok, more advice needed please

Just got a kb for my classic(long wait!), but now when i try booting it, it doesn't sound good. Kb appears to be fine(beeps on power-up), but i think the hd i has died. Doesn't sound like it's spinning, and there's a nasty siren-like sound coming from the box Don't have my video adapter yet(couple more days), so i can't be sure, but i think the siren is saying that the hd has had it. Do you know anything about this?

I'll wait till i can see what i'm doing before i decide anything, but i'm not confident I hadn't booted it since buying it, and now when i try booting it without the kb attached, it still refuses to boot to an os, and just sits there whining Siren is quiet, and goes for about 5-10secs, before pausing for the same time.


This has just gone and ruined a good day.

 

[wyrd_fish]

my dad recently put debian on an old server...

it rocks

you tellit to install something and it connects to teh internet, gets it and setts it up for you

he asked it to put a PHP gallery thing on for him, it got apache, php, mysql and the gallery and set it all up. i was impressed

 

[TdC]

This has just gone and ruined a good day.

relax dudeh, it'll be fine (I hope). sadly I know nothing of sirens or alarm beeps on classics, so I can't help you there matey I hope your video adapter arrives soon!