Method to revive hard drives from the 80s

Do you have an old hard drive from the 80s that spins up but clunks or makes strange seek noises? If so, this fix might be for you. I have now resurrected 3 drives made in the mid to late 80s using this method.
This is a Western Digital WD362 / Tandon TM362. Here are some specs:
- Mean Time Between Failures 15,000 power on hours
- Mean Time To Repair 30 minutes
- Component Design Life 5 years
- Preventative Maintenance Not Required
5 years? My two drives are over 30 years old and still work! Amazing.

[@wolfytechs]

People who do this and have old technology for hobbies they always have the best treasure...

[@operationmeatspin]

I've done the same trick to the same model drive in my tandy 1000 tx. Mine was so seized up i had to use vice grips to get the stepper motor shaft freed up. Been working for ~5 years since.

[@genericinterneter]

does it still work 11 years later?

[@3beltwesty]

The "3.5 inch" TM362 disc drive was designed in 1984 and came out in 1985. The sister model TM262 is the same HDA but with a cage for 5 1/4" say for the XT or AT computers. The first runs were built in Chatsworth and Simi Valley, then Singapore. There was also a giant long carded version the TM362SP that has the drive and controller card as one ISA card gizmo that requires a long slot. I think but maybe controller was Western Digital on these ,but I did not get all my merit badges. :) The drives have 2 discs, 4 heads. The rpm is slightly less than 3600 to allow for the servo wedge tiny sector , to close the loop. The carriage that holds the 4 head flexures is linear and a rack. The stepper motor inside has the pinion, ie rack and pinion. The servo "closes the loop" for head position is really just done on one end of each track in usage, ie the server wedge sector. Thus the scheme is OK but really has its limits since the loop is closed around just one small angle on each track. Thus the non repeatible spindle runout has the track moving with respect to the head a tiny amount. Each 1/60 second the wedge is see any error is corrected. Then the servo is blind until another 1/60 second passes. This drive is about 800 tpi, ie 800 tracks per inch . ie pitch of 1250 microinches or 39 microns. . The heads "fly" at about 20 microinches, ie 1/2 micron. This drive was about 600 bucks when new say about the cost of 500 gallons of gasoline in SoCal, or one months rent. :) The rack and pinion has its limits plus it was not free from generating crap. The applied motion products stepper motor probably had Andok C grease as soap type grease with excellent channeling. Since the production volumes made on disc drives were high the vendors often used a substitute grease of their own or just switched in production and thus some got greases that dried out quick or outgassed and caused crap on the sliders (heads). A regreasing seemed to work in this video. The sliders can get stuck on the discs on a drive that is old, worn or sees a lot of humidity. With time they often get stuck, ie Jo blocked to the platter. If too much torque is applied with stuck heads one can bend the flexures, the gizmos that hold the sliders (heads) to the positioner.

[@videotape2959]

That's absolutely amazing. Did you work for Tandon?

[@mcsew2k]

In 1985, I paid 1200 for 10mb and and my rent was 175.

[@mark12358]

It worked for me using your trick! An old MFM Miniscribe 8425 is brought back to life and now it's working under an A2090A controller into one of my A2000B. Great tip!

[@infinitecanadian]

You can thank KZbin for bringing this to my attention and thus earning you a new subscriber. Immediately upon seeing this, I knew that you would join the ranks of The 8-Bit Guy, LGR, and VWestlife as my favorites.

[@Slot1Gamer]

Dube you can store like 10 1.44mb floppies on this thing! We are in the future! wow

[@bitchlasagna4720]

this is crazy duuude!!!!

[@snooks5607]

lol just bought my first 8tb drive so got curious and googled 8tb/1.44mb it came back with 5 555 555.56. nice number

[@MrWaalkman]

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these...

[@teachingbees7048]

When you only owned 10 floppies, still kinda awesome.

[@CLS2086]

It was the time that a 1.44 floppy cost was about $20/25$ each, and a 360k 5'1/4 was about $7/$10 each

[@Lachlant1984]

I love the noises those old stepper motor hard drives make.

[@PushyPawn]

Ahh the good old days when hard drives needed oil changes, new filters, platter rotation and head cleaning.

[@chrstphrr]

OMG, where were you back in the early 90s when my 40mb WD MFM drive died? :P :)

[@dr.leonardhofstadter5866]

I remember these old 80s hard drive's, it's really amazing how hard drive technology has changed. Now you can buy external hard drive with 8TB, just amazing to see them old things.

[@ShesSometimesDoubleChocolate.]

Drive's... what? Which possessions of a drive are you trying to refer to?

[@zoiuduu]

@@ShesSometimesDoubleChocolate. it's his autocorretor m8

[@fffUUUUUU]

Well done! Another HDD saved from the Almighty Floppotron :)

[@joshuafountain1931]

Yay another vintage computer geek in Portland. Nice to know.

[@rodneylives]

This is one of my favorite channels. It almost makes me think I could maybe do some of this myself.

[@pmgodfrey]

I've always loved this particular model due to the sounds the stepper motor made during startup. My brother had one in his XT. I later had a Western Digital 40 meg IDE (Type 17), can't remember the model number. Very similar looking, but sounded totally different sounding. Couldn't believe I soon had a Seagate 90 meg RLL drive, it was so much space. Just ordered a 10 Terabyte drive for like $280. How times have changed.

[@sneugler]

Been using this method for years, it’s fantastic. Had a Seagate ST225 that was completely seized in both the platters and heads. A single drop of oil and pliers made it work like new

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

I hope this oiling method will work for me. The drive I just got is nearly the exact same one in the video, and it has been non-functional like this since before 2000, according to the previous owner. So far, after a few hours, there is no difference, but I still believe the cause of failure is the same.

[@therealjammit]

Another problem with ball bearings is brinelling. It's when they're under a static load (not moving) for too long and the bearings make little dents in the bearing housing. Actually using them often is the only way to prevent this. You might be able to "un-brinell" a drive by giving it a good burn in. The constant action might have the bearings "beat" the dents out until it becomes less worse.

[@numberg8238]

Hi Adrian, Thanks for this video; I was able to use it to get an old 28Mb hard drive from 1986 for a BBC computer up and running! It passes all tests fine too.

[@PolakeXD]

I done it on my IBM hard drive a week ago. First five days it still made some strange noises but now I don't hear anything bad coming from the motor and it seems to work very good again. Thanks for the tutorial and I'm glad that there are still some people who are interested in all the retro stuff :)

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

I've got this same issue with nearly the exact same hard drive in the video. I oiled it as shown, but after several hours, there is still no difference. Hopefully mine will work again soon.

[@compu85]

I had to do that same repair to a ST412 and ST506. The little drop of oil helps. On one of the 412s I had to take the drive apart and put a drop of oil on the inside bearing because it was so gummed up.

[@cesaraugustomari3676]

I remember reading the RadioShack catalogue and seeing pictures of Tandy computers ... it was 1996 and I was 11 😀

[@consolehacker54]

That Triflow stuff is great! We use it at the bicycle shop where I work and I keep some at home because it works miracles on any kind of stuck cable or mechanism you can throw at it

[@gentlemanfinland]

Thanks alot! My Hyundai Super 286E is now working, it did not start before this lubrication. Funny that hard drive is similar, just different model (WD95028-AD / 21MB)

[@mwicker777]

Adrian! I worked with you at LYV/TM a few years ago, hopefully you remember me. Love that you are into retro computing as I am as well! Nice fix on the old HD

[@88ariesk]

It worked on my Seagate ST225. I used Sewing machine oil. Same difference.

[@whatifindinteresting3067]

the technique makes sense, must have been a great feeling that first time on the apple when it booted up fine. Good thinking.

[@mcsew2k]

I added a drop to the spindle of a seized up Seagate drive. Works great now.

[@gingersquatch9844]

Now I know how to maintain the HDD in my AT&T PC 6300 from 1984. Thank you!!

[@Halterung01]

I have done the same thing with a Tandon Tm252 10MB MFM drive. That drive had a lot stranger behavior. It seemed to work fine at first but before lubricating the stepper motor it would not find the cylinders when formatting right after a low level format. Eben when it had the fault it always sounded perfect. Now it also works perfectly.

[@TerryMcKean]

Nice!... and makes perfect sense, too, since those motor's shaft-bearings are exposed to the outside air and whatever dust and heat and etc etc etc inside the computer, causing the original lubricant to eventually dry out and gum up. Thanks for sharing, Adrian.

[@Zankuho]

Nice! Looking forward to watch that Tandy restoration video!

[@docchocobo]

Mmmm back in the good ol' DOS days :) I started with a Northgate 286 and DOS 3.30. Those old hard drives sounded so freakin' awesome when they booted up, like some kind of turbojet engine. Computers used to be awesome things you had to know the nuts and bolts of. We used to work on em'. Now we work at em' You'd be hard pressed to find many kids these days who even know what an IRQ is anymore. I love old machines :) Lots of my childhood spent on them.

[@sysghost]

I did something similar a few years ago with a vintage computer. But I went a lot deeper. I removed the stepper motor. (Surprisingly easy without the need to tear down the rest of the drive.). opened the stepper motor up to reach those bearings and replaced them. Later inspection of the old bearings showed that the original lubricant has stiffened up and caused them to get stuck.

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

Thank you for this comment. I have been trying many drops over many days with no difference on mine, which is nearly exactly the same as in the video. This comment gives me hope that opening my stepper motor will be easy and successful to free the spindle.

[@mariusberger3297]

Thanks! You brought both my Mac SE floppy and hard drive back from the dead :D

[@TylerStartz]

Thanks for the video, Adrian. I have two MiniScribe drives from my two Macintosh SEs, and I'm going to try this method.

[@andyspencer8285]

This fixed my Macintosh SE original 20 MB SCSI Miniscribe. It was almost completely dead, would not initialize and made some pretty awful sounds. Now it's working like new. Thanks so much!

[@bigjd2k]

Wow the number of those old drives I’ve taken the stepper motor off over the years for other projects... they are very rare now and hardly ever see them.

[@memadmax69]

Wow, that hard drive brings back lots of long, horrible night memories lol

[@rectify2003]

Awesome fix

[@armitage64]

Thanks for the video! I recently picked up an Apple IIgs that came with a Western Digital RLL drive in a SCSI enclosure that only worked 1 out of 10 times it was powered on. I tried this trick on it and it seems to work must more consistently now!

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Glad I could help!

[@timoterho1762]

I did this oil treatment to my old hard disk drive WD93044-A (42MB, manufacturing date 6-16-1990) because it stopped working and started to make horrible noises. I used Hetman oil for musical instruments and the hard disk drive is now working fine!

[@MaximumRD]

Very cool and interesting!

[@stax00]

thx! i love cheap solutions like yours :)

[@andymalakov4283]

Thank you, this helped - got my Miniscribe 8425 back to live !

[@msuc5vette]

6 years later $10 is an completely unimaginable deal for this Tandy.

[@Grobbekee]

I had a 20mb Miniscribe in the late eighties. Always worked perfectly but was shaking the table when it was seeking. Pretty loud also.

[@billchildress9756]

I had 1 of those Tandy 1000's back in the 90's but it 2 of those drives and I remember they were both the Seagate type and they both worked very well! Only enuff room for Dos though.

[@JankPods0201]

This video was posted on my 7th birthday, Surprising!

[@John.B.Jenkins]

Sent here from LGR. Nice to meet you.

[@ncc74656m]

Revenge of Doh!!! One of my favorite games!

[@ekner]

That circlip there makes me believe the stepper motor should disassemble pretty gracefully. I'm worried the second bearing might not get oil this way, there's no guarantee without getting in there. Have you done any digging into taking one apart, are there any obstacles in terms of permanent fixtures?

[@ekner]

I see. Hopefully the restricted air circulation around the inner bearing helps keep the grease from degrading. A well sealed bearing shouldn't gunk up, technically...

[@Manofcube]

You can take the motor off, but don't pull the rotor out. It messes up the magnetic field and makes the motor half as strong. Yes this sounds like BS, but it's true. The rotors are magnetised at the factory while installed in the stator housing.

[@markus8282]

I wouldn't take it off if not absolutely necessary, because it maybe could mess up the head positioning

[@TerryMcKean]

@Adrian...Right on, plus, the inner-bearing is not exposed to the outside of the hard-drive's enclosure like the outer-bearing is, and most likely won't be getting so gummed up like the outer one.

[@JakubChalupnik]

Actually, you can use syringe with needle to precisely dose the amount of oil and place it exactly where it needs to go. I'm using the trick when oiling computer fans.

[@RinoaL]

well thats pretty helpful actually, i have the same exact drive, i'll try this next time i get it out.

[@16mmDJ]

Great info! I was wondering if I'd ever be able to resurrect my Mac SE's hard drive! I'll give this a try and report back :)

[@danielyoung_]

16mmDJ So did it work?

[@16mmDJ]

It worked! I've posted a video showing the lubricant I used and the gutted Mac SE. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pXLQon-oidajqJY Thank you Adrian!

[@DonaldAnderson]

Awesome! I'm in the Portland area too! Oregon that is.....

[@GamePlayShare]

One of my 5 inch floppy drives had similar problem with stepping motor. it rotated buy weirdly and noisily. Lubrication have fixed it instantly. Its a good rule to lubricate all motors (if its possible) in computer once in 2-4 years.

[@landspide]

That triflow chain lube smells so darn good- aromatic indeed.

[@infinitecanadian]

I think I speak for all your fans in saying that we are eagerly awaiting your next video ;)

[@SkyCharger001]

The HDD of my first PC, a second-hand XT, used to have both what might have been this problem and one that was a bit nastier... the crown-gear that connected the stepper-motor to the gear on what is the actuator axis on modern HDDs was cracked. But I was lucky that a bit of repositioning of the motor (by my father, I was way too young to do it myself) allowed two meccano gears (which had the same gear ratio, but not the same size) to take over the job just long enough to copy the data to a more reliable drive an acquaintance had laying around.

[@Saphykitten]

You're in Portland? Nice! So am I!

[@mattalki]

When I was 15 years old, I got a summer job in my local town. I saved every single cent I made, and at the end of the summer I purchased a brand new Tandy 1000TL with CM-11 from Radio Shack. I still have that computer, and I've recently set it up in my office as a vintage gaming rig. It's awesome, and I'm glad I never got rid of it. The one you purchased looks really clean! I'm looking forward to more videos on it. I'd love to see some speed comparisons between it and your Tandy 1000EX with the NEC V-20 in it. My father had a 1000SX, and my TL blew the doors off of it performance wise. He just had the 8088 though.

[@MrPGT]

Sounds like you REALLY got value for your money on that particular purchase. It is sad that Tandy/Radio Shack went to the wall and no longer make their cool products.

[@jackkraken3888]

Cool, I've only used the oil trick on CPU fans and in rare cases power supply fans and it does help.

[@xnonsuchx]

I have an old 96MB Seagate SCSI drive that quit responding, making some slightly weird noises and it was a stiction problem where the heads were stuck in the home position. Lightly smacking the side of the drive as it tried spinning up several times worked for me, but I was sure to copy anything off it I wanted to keep in case it ended up dying entirely.

[@Turborider]

I did that to my old mfm hdd too and it seems to work so far.

[@XLessThanZ]

Wow, haven't heard the name HardCard in a while. Great-Grandfather to m.2 NVMe. Progress is amazing.

[@kd1s]

On my original XT machine I had a Seagate ST220 drive. It was rock solid and only 20MB! Now I've got 225GB on my laptop.

[@ErraticPT]

It generally works as long as the bearings arent seized or worn badly and the drive can still seek (even incorrectly). Many old drives like this that I've seen, however the bearings are usually shot or siezed (either though grease turning solid or failing) and either have to be replaced or rebuilt to get any useful functionality out of a drive. Whatever the case its worth trying and won't do any harm.

[@pcuser80]

I used this drive with stacker disk compression.

[@PatrickBaptist]

Good video!

[@KrishnaDraws]

Great video, Aaron! How would you lubricate a Seagate stepper motor, since its spindle is facing inside? Thanks!

[@shmehfleh3115]

Wow, I am having old computer flashbacks like crazy! I had the 40MB of that hard drive in my very first computer, a 386. The only difference I can remember is that WD added a clear plastic guard over the end of the stepper motor.

[@sjk254]

LOL $10. Everyone around here wants $900 because it's "vintage and rare".

[@paulmichaelfreedman8334]

I have one of these in my retro HDD collection box. Was working when it went in, no idea if it's seized up by now. But I have far more interesting specimens in that box, like a 20 Meg 5.25 Full height drive that I actually used as a second drive in My 8088 XT machine from 1989. Of course I installed stacker to "double" it to 40 :) Of course, a seagate ST-225 and ST-251 are in the box too.

[@fft2020]

Paul I have a ST-251R too and I am too afraid to turn it on, I have no idea what condition it is in... do you have some tips on what I should do before turning it on What controller card should I have for it? Does it operate on any MFM controler card or must it be a specific model? I heard about western digital controllers... thank you

[@bite-sizedshorts9635]

My first IBM compatible computer was a Tandy 3000NL. I had a 20MB hard card added for over $700. This was in early 1989.

[@nickblackburn1903]

Hi interesting video thanks. I have the same drive fitted in a Zenith Eazy PC. This is currently experiencing Disk Controller errors and when it does try to boot up the drive makes terrible noises then fails. The Zenith PC I acquired at the weekend had never been used, brand new from the factory! So I was surprised that the drive would have failed already. Perhaps gummed up bearings? I will try this oiling idea tonight and let you know! Cheers. Nick

[@kevinthompson4138]

cool trick thanks

[@MaltaMcMurchy]

Thank you!

[@rich1051414]

I use 3-in-one brand ptfe lube for stepper lubrication. It works better after it drys, when wet it penetrates, when dry it freezes in place and lubricates.

[@m4d3ng]

I use that same lube on my bike chain - it's amazing stuff

[@5argetech56]

Stepper motors are also used in some car instrument clusters...... Such as the Buick Rendezvous.

[@wisteela]

Great info. Subscribed.

[@bRad-ns6iy]

Paul Potter î

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

Wow awesome

[@Slot1Gamer]

great video :)

[@Whelkman]

A few years ago I pulled my original Playstation from the attic. It'd work fine for about half an hour before eventually crashing. I thought maybe the GPU died because I'd get graphical corruption right before it gave up. I took it apart and noticed the CD-ROM spindle seemed a bit stiff, so I applied a few drops of 3-in-1. That's all it needed. I've been hearing a lot lately about the high failure rate of Playstation drives and it makes me wonder. The sound of that stepper motor brings back memories.

[@totaltwit]

Interesting, good work, nice presentation too. I guess one thing is to resist the temptation of turning the stepper by hand as this would move the heads across the HD and could do damage. Pls correct me if I'm wrong. I've had many Seagate HD die on me, they had that internal mechanism (voice coil), I found with the Apple ones, there are some small "rubber" items internally that turn into goo and gum the head arm up. Also some had like a clock countdown or maybe surface fault counter and would just close down. I tried SeaTools (Seagate HD tools) but that seemed to make things worse.

[@yeetcannonplays]

I've been doing IT for 14 years and I have to say this machine looks pretty hefty compared to what we have now. It looks like you could throw it off a mountain and it would still post. lol

[@N9olan]

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

[@robertt9342]

The repair makes sense to me if the problem is caused by the motor like in this case. The lubricant has likely dried up over time so a refresher can make it run like new. It just matters if the bearings had become worn due to lack of lubrication.

[@stevebez2767]

Nice tip that,do recall having spare steppers about,but the mixture prohibits! Would like too see some gen on the boot loader systems ,not just Tandy,Mac SE/30 ,Mac 72000 ,LCIII ,Compaq,IBM ps2,thx

[@grindle2000]

I have done the same thing to restore old case fans , you just have to sure and use a decent oil with teflon :)

[@ussrover]

Years ago (15-20) I took MFM, SCSSI, & IDE made a "frankenstein" system the MFM was the boot drive had 6 9 GIG SCSI (separate case) and a CD burner (drive 0). Weight of 2 units over 300#. Long gone now

[@altamiradorable]

Did the same thing on a 20k$ HP drive I had sold to a client ! I used some teflon/silicone greaseless lube !! It saved my butt !

[@videotape2959]

As with any hard drive mechanical issues are the least of your worries. custom microcontrollers, ROMs, and hidden firmware on the platters in the case of voice coil drives failing is what everyone should worry about.

[@kpanic23]

Actually, I've done the same with Western Digital XTA 8-bit IDE drives I got from eBay a couple of years ago. When I got them, they were totally seized up. I sprayed the shaft with some WD40 and used a pair of pliers to free it up by carefully turning the shaft left and right a little bit. After a while, during the seek test the drive started to seek farther and farther, and after a couple of tries, the drive got freed up. Still working flawlessly to this day. You can see one of them in action here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hoWacmZ_jKqZmMU I guess the driveshaft had seized due to corrosion by having been stored in a damp basement for some time. Glad to hear you being able to revive your drives by the same technique!

[@PixelMaker04]

I've watched this video a couple of times. Yep. I need to get some bearing oil for my MFM drives.

[@infamousacidrain]

And it’s good on bikes :) used to use it on my full suspension mtb

[@8bitromania263]

i worked in a factory building 230 VAc low power motors, the ones with bearings that would be noisy from the assembly line work ok with oil...although was not a regular procedure...bearing motors are never oiled

[@geoffhalsey2184]

I had a XT PC with a similar hard drive card. On boot it use to sound like I had a trained tap dancing mouse, the live furry kind that is.

[@Dxceor2486]

Oh I've got a drive like this in my 8088. It had a similar problem but mine was fixed on it's own by running it several times for a long time. I'll probably do this though so it'll last longer

[@warikyacent6655]

Good tip, ty

[@InssiAjaton]

Well, well, well! Maybe I should take a look how my first hard drive is doing. I bought a Bering 8” floppy + a 5 MB hard drive combo to augment an HP 87 computer that had external dual 5.25” floppy drives. To be able to back the hard disk to those 8” floppies, the hard disk had to be partitioned to 4 each of 1.2 MB, wasting last 0.2 MB. At some point the hard disk stopped functioning and I remember trying some futile things, including a replacement with a 20 MB drive. No go - low level control “language issues” evidently. Since then, quite likely various capacitors have also gone bad in the drive(s) as well as the HP 87 itself. A couple of details worth mentioning here is that the HP 87 was 8-bit computer with 8 of internal 8-bit registers that could be chained into one 64-bit register. The operating system was Basic and implemented in DECIMAL. Its numeric range was +/- 10 ^ 500 or so. Oh, and the CPU clock frequency was 680 kHz - not even MHz and of course not the present GHz numbers. At some point I got a 4 MHz Z-80 co-processor that ran in a memory expansion slot with CP/M. Oh, those days!

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

So, did oiling your disk drive motors work?