Musical Maxtor

[ScottW]

There is only a one-in-a-million; chance that this will occur.

1 in a million eh. This thread has 180 replies so far and lots of reports of this issue occuring. My guess is that you picked that 1 in a million claim out of thin air.

[wera]

So um... What was causing the music?

[DanU]

Little green elves inside the hard drive release the Magic Smoke so they can breath it in and get high. The resulting burst of merriment causes them to play a melody on their pan pipes...

...well that's my personal theory anyway.

[najevi]

Originally Posted by wera

So um... What was causing the music?

grungebob's explanation may have required a little imagination to interpret but what I got out of it was that

when the arm that carries the read/write heads is not moving (stuck) the stepper motor driving that arm attempts to oscillate the arm in an effort to free it up. (just as when your car tyre is stuck in mud or sand you try a "reverse then forward" motion to see if you can create enough momentum to get your tyre out of the hole it's stuck in.)
This so called "buzz routine" causes the arm and possibly other mechanical parts to vibrate (oscillate) and that is where the polyphonic sound comes from. (much like the melody that arises from the vibration of different length tuning forks or the metallic comb that you find inside one of those wind up music boxes.)
You will recall that the melody is heard 3 times after power on. These would be the three times this "buzz routine" is used in an attempt to dislodge the stuck arm carrying the read/write heads.

BTW a Maxtor/Seagate support representative that I was corresponding with via email did visit this forum to listen to the mp3 soundbyte and to read grungebob's explanation. He confirmed that it was an accurate description and said he'd refer the FAQ Q&A matter to the webmaster in charge of Maxtor's FAQ web page.

[jetzmaru]

I have a Maxtor 250 GB Diamond Max 10 that was in an external case. I've dropped it a few times, and after the last drop it started playing this tune. Very similar to the one posted. I've attached a recording. I too cannot lose the data on it, so the warranty be dammed anyway. I've tried tapping it. No luck I'm going to get a torx wrench and carefully open it and see if I can manually spin the platters.

Thanks guys for keeping this thread alive. It's giving me hope!

[mujjuman]

i love TechIMO so much. very nice forum, very nice mods, and overall very nice users.

thanks so much for this thread guys (and other cool threads), even though i dont hang out much here.

[_DigDug_]

OK I have no idea what to do. Found this in good btw
250GB hdd, makes the beeping sound. NEED to access the files on it, but banging it or *tapping* as you lot call it, doesn't work Whats this freezing malarky on about? Does it work with this particular problem?

[mujjuman]

it may work, or it may not work. its all about chance, really.

[_DigDug_]

Well, I know that it works by shrinking the write heads just enough ( ie to prevent them rubbing ) but will that stop the problem temporarily. I mean, what prevents the platter from spinning?

[mujjuman]

we think its either a seized motor or the heads crashing onto the platters if the platters expand too much because of heat... or a combination of both.