BadGoldEagle
Well-known member
Hey guys/gals
I bought a week ago sight unseen an Apple HD20 for 28€ shipped. I figured, what the heck, if it doesn't work at least it'll look good as a prop. A lot of these don't work anymore, and sure enough, when it finally showed up, it was DOA.
I looked online and found this video by Adrian Black... I thought, why not give it a try? Plus, if you look down in the comments, you'll notice that Adrian wasn't the only one to bring one of those stepper motor drives back to life.... 16mmDJ managed to revive his 20mb miniscribe inside his SE using the same method.
I ordered some Hetman oil (Lubricant 11, Light Rotor) a week ago and it arrived today. It's actually made for brass instruments, but apparently it can be used to revive old hard drives as well.
I set about disassembling this thing. It's actually a lot easier to take apart than the 20SC. I decided to remove and clean every part inside since quite a few dust bunnies had made their home inside the casing. Both the inside and the outside were really filthy. I don't know where or how this was stored but I actually thought I wouldn't be able to restore this cosmetically, but it actually turned out great. It looks new.
Anyway, back to the hard drive itself. The stepper motor's shaft is located underneath the drive, so you definitely need to remove the four screws that secure the drive to the chassis first. If you want to know how to take it apart properly, then I suggest taking a look at the HD20 service manual available here.
I added a couple of drops of lube and lo and behold... nothing happened. I gave a couple of knocks on each side. Still wouldn't fire up. I tried powering it on and off a couple of times and the PCB started getting really hot! But there was no time for electrical or mechanical sympathy. After a while I heard a click coming from the drive. That was good news. I powered it off and gave it a few more knocks. It went back to sleep.
At that point, anger was flowing through my system. I thought I had spent 15 bucks on some lube that made no difference whatsoever and that I would never use again (I'm no trumpeter). So I gave it a really good wack while it was still powered on. And it sprung back into life. It sounded terrible at first but after it warmed up a little, it sounded a lot better. There still wasn't any head movement though. But the motor had sucked up all the lube I had previously applied on its shaft. So I added a couple more drops, and after yet another restart, I saw the heads move a little. It was then I knew I would be able to bring it back. :rambo:
About 10 minutes after that, the drive was as good as new. It now spins up and down like in the olden days. And better yet, it mounts right on my performa's desktop! So now, I have a perfectly working and mint looking HD20. I'm the happiest man on earth right now. I actually mended an old hard drive. I had previously tried to revive an old sony but that ended catastrophically...
Here's a terrible picture of my partially disassembled HD20:
I was in the process of backing it up before formatting it... Notice the use of the Floppy EMU in HD20 mode connected to the HD20... HD20-ception!
So, TL;DR
Have an old HD20 with a Rodime HD or an SE with a Miniscribe? Give the drive a good wack and the stepper motor some lubricant and it could spring back into life!
PS: I was quite surprised to hear that the Performa 200 (Classic II) had built in HD20 support. I really wonder now why Apple decided to add that back to the ROMs after they deliberately removed it from the SE/30...
I bought a week ago sight unseen an Apple HD20 for 28€ shipped. I figured, what the heck, if it doesn't work at least it'll look good as a prop. A lot of these don't work anymore, and sure enough, when it finally showed up, it was DOA.
I looked online and found this video by Adrian Black... I thought, why not give it a try? Plus, if you look down in the comments, you'll notice that Adrian wasn't the only one to bring one of those stepper motor drives back to life.... 16mmDJ managed to revive his 20mb miniscribe inside his SE using the same method.
I ordered some Hetman oil (Lubricant 11, Light Rotor) a week ago and it arrived today. It's actually made for brass instruments, but apparently it can be used to revive old hard drives as well.
I set about disassembling this thing. It's actually a lot easier to take apart than the 20SC. I decided to remove and clean every part inside since quite a few dust bunnies had made their home inside the casing. Both the inside and the outside were really filthy. I don't know where or how this was stored but I actually thought I wouldn't be able to restore this cosmetically, but it actually turned out great. It looks new.
Anyway, back to the hard drive itself. The stepper motor's shaft is located underneath the drive, so you definitely need to remove the four screws that secure the drive to the chassis first. If you want to know how to take it apart properly, then I suggest taking a look at the HD20 service manual available here.
I added a couple of drops of lube and lo and behold... nothing happened. I gave a couple of knocks on each side. Still wouldn't fire up. I tried powering it on and off a couple of times and the PCB started getting really hot! But there was no time for electrical or mechanical sympathy. After a while I heard a click coming from the drive. That was good news. I powered it off and gave it a few more knocks. It went back to sleep.
At that point, anger was flowing through my system. I thought I had spent 15 bucks on some lube that made no difference whatsoever and that I would never use again (I'm no trumpeter). So I gave it a really good wack while it was still powered on. And it sprung back into life. It sounded terrible at first but after it warmed up a little, it sounded a lot better. There still wasn't any head movement though. But the motor had sucked up all the lube I had previously applied on its shaft. So I added a couple more drops, and after yet another restart, I saw the heads move a little. It was then I knew I would be able to bring it back. :rambo:
About 10 minutes after that, the drive was as good as new. It now spins up and down like in the olden days. And better yet, it mounts right on my performa's desktop! So now, I have a perfectly working and mint looking HD20. I'm the happiest man on earth right now. I actually mended an old hard drive. I had previously tried to revive an old sony but that ended catastrophically...
Here's a terrible picture of my partially disassembled HD20:
I was in the process of backing it up before formatting it... Notice the use of the Floppy EMU in HD20 mode connected to the HD20... HD20-ception!
So, TL;DR
Have an old HD20 with a Rodime HD or an SE with a Miniscribe? Give the drive a good wack and the stepper motor some lubricant and it could spring back into life!
PS: I was quite surprised to hear that the Performa 200 (Classic II) had built in HD20 support. I really wonder now why Apple decided to add that back to the ROMs after they deliberately removed it from the SE/30...
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