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Repairing external Hyperdrive FX/20 by General Computing

Mu0n

Well-known member
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My father had this since 86 and it was in regular use for at least 3 years, then in semi-regular up to around 93. Then, it got stored, to be digged up as well as the family Mac Plus around 2004 when the vintage bug bit me. I operated it every 1-3 years until 2017 when it finally dawned on me I should back the files from it, since there must have been quite a few media files, such as VideoWorks animations by my brother and me, maybe some text documents, maybe some images and, fingers crossed, my WIP world builder game.
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So, while I was busy setting it up and booting it, my then infant son had a diaper emergency which demanded my attention, but when I came back, the mac had frozen and the drive would not boot ever again since then, right before I was actually going to back up that data for real. I kicked myself, but in 2019, I realized I had at least backed the videoworks animation files in a Mac Classic, so all was not lost, and that stuff has been shoved to youtube for me to show my brother and some close friends (if you're really curious about what the mind of an early teenager did with videoworks, PM me).

After realizing that the drive it used was really common, a ST-225N from Seagate and seeing a few videos of oil doing the trick long enough to back data out, I'm tempted to do the same thing. It's not like I *need* this noisy and clunky storage device, I have tons of better alternatives, but if there's a chance I can potentially dig out personal files, I'm all for it.




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I'm looking for tips of do's and dont's from people who have worked on these exact units in the past.
 

robin-fo

Well-known member
I have the same (or very similar) drive in my HD20SC. It came back to life after I applied some oil, but it only appears to work when it is placed upside-down. Good luck!
 

Mu0n

Well-known member
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Using the original installation disk, I'm getting an initializing request as it tries to mount. I'm getting power, the regular head positioning chirp when it's ready and I don't think I'm getting clunky sticky problem sounds.
















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Using Tattletech, the drive is seen, capacity looks right but it will not mount

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I went boldly with Lido 7's seek testing, which ran for about 15 minutes, and I got 72 ms average seek times, but nothing in this app lets me detect a formatted partition.

I did not have the heart to attempt a reformat yet, since I'm still pining for data. I very lightly oiled up the motor shaft, even though it did not seem it was necessary. When I was about done, I wanted to try running it flipped over.
Powering it then created a flash and my fuse has gone. I'll try to replace it (2 A, 250 V) and see if the next one goes as well.

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