16 Apr 2004, 22:56, MIKE ROSS (1:167/133), wrote to David Drummond:

Hi MIKE.

 MR> "David Drummond" bravely wrote to "Ken Parnell"
(17 Apr 04  
 MR> 07:47:16)

 DD>> 16 Apr 04 05:36, Ken Parnell wrote to Viktor Pilpenok:

 >>> AFAIK, it can be at any angle, the point is this angle shouldn't 
 >>> change while the drive is spinned on.

 KP>> From my experience and all of the books I have read the only 
 KP>> angle that your never supposed to run a Hard Drive is upside down. 
 KP>> It sounds like his was already mounted on it's side and when he 
 KP>> tilted it an aditional 45 degrees that put his drive upside down.
 KP>> You are almost guarenteed to kill a drive this way.

 DD>> I disagree. Some of the PCs we have at work have the drive 
 DD>> mounted circuit side up.

 MR> I am surprised because upside down is the most common 
 MR> interdiction in manufacturer's warnings. These usually read mounting 
 MR> on either side is ok except upside down. Do you know why upside down 
 MR> is warned against?

The one thing that worries me about upside down mountings is the buildup of
dirt, dust, and the possibility of metal fragments from screw threads,
etc., collecting on the tiny PCBs and eventually leading to serious
problems.

My computer dealer has for years installed all his drives upside down and
has has zero problems related to that mounting.  I am presently running two
years on an old 6G laptop drive that he discarded, only to find out later
that the ONLY position it _will_ run in is upside down, and with NO errors.
 When right side up, the drive won't even initialize or be seen by the
system.  

The only mounting restrictions that I recall were on _old_ SCSI drives,
which oddly enough specified that they may be "mounted in any
orientation except on either end".  This might have been on the first
series of the Seagate Baracuda SCSI drives (and may still be so marked -
but I haven't seen any recent ones).

It is confusing when manufacturers make 'specifications' with no rationale
for them.   :-((


     Good luck...  M.

--- Msged/386 TE 06 (pre)