G3 Hard Drive spins down when in use

[bujstapley]

Can anyone help me with advise on this. I have a G3 Beige Powermac running OS 9.2.2 (recently upgraded from 8.6). I'm not sure if it's linked, but since I've upgraded my OS, the Mac HD spins down and hangs the system randomly. It happens, even if I'm busy using the drive. I try and reboot but it cant see the HD and boots from another SCSI drive instead that I have the OS backed up on. I usually have to perform a cold restart (usually leaving the Mac off overnight) to get the HD to spin up. Disk First Aid scans the HD but finds no problems with it.

Has anyone heard of this problem before and can they suggest a solution?

Thanks in anticipation....

Julian

 

[Graphite]

Hmm, yes, i have heard of this problem.. I cant quite remember how to remidey this problem..

do you have it in settings to sleep HD when inactive?

 

[bujstapley]

Hi, Thanks for replying. I thought it was a power save issue too, but have set all of the settings to 'never'. It really is a puzzler, I've tried and looked at loads of settings, but cant seem to identify it.

 

[Emrys]

I looked at a bunch of other sites for info on this as well. Not very much out there about it.

Weird issue, eh?

 

[muso]

Tried using norton system works?

 

[Graphite]

i would suggest a clean installation.

 

[bujstapley]

Hi Folks

Thanks for your suggestions about Norton and a Clean Installation. I'm running Pro Tools on the Mac which has all kinds of hassles and stuff with authorisations etc. so I would like to avoid any action that causes me to init. the HD. Does a clean install require this? (I'm a bit of a thicko see). Also what will Norton do for me?

Regards

Julian

 

[Graphite]

Im not shur what Norton will do.. but a clean installation will erase your HD, and start over from scratch.. which requires you to install everything again...

 

[bujstapley]

Hmmm, ok, thanks. I'll need to think a bit about this action...

 

[bujstapley]

Well, well, well...Here's one for your records! I tried a last-ditch effort to see if something was wrong with the power cable to the HD. I took the cover off the Mac and noticed the 4-pin power plug was attached, but one side was out very slightly. I pushed it back in firmly, closed the Mac lid, powered it all back up and hey-presto! It's all working again... The power to the drive was being lost by slight vibrations, causing the drive to spin down! Me tapping my foot to the music I was recording or making on the Mac at the time probably... I shall now be charging myself out as an expert Mac engineer - not! Thanks for your interest guys...

 

[gatorparrots]

One can prevent non-boot drives from spinning down with this command in the terminal:
sudo pmset -a spindown 0