3b1 40meg disk woes: Help

[daniel.r.levy]

> > Sigh.  Kim Wallen recites tales of woe re: his 3B1 with a 40MB HD.
> > 
> 
> 
> I would be interested in knowing for how many of these cases, the disk
> heads were not parked when the machines were shut down. I've said it
> before - nothing is guaranteed in this world, but if you EVER shut down
> and turn off a unix-pc without first parking the heads, you have to ask
> yourself a question -- "Do I feel lucky" ?

>From Floryan's explanation, it sounds like the blame lies elsewhere, i.e.,
the heads sticking to the media in park position due to gumming up by the
lubricant, at least for the Seagates.  That wouldn't be due to head crashes.  
For the Miniscribe, that's an unanswered question.

The shutdown message warns the user to park the heads if the machine is going
to be moved.  This would seem to imply that parking the heads is unnecessary
otherwise, though it does sound like a good idea.  When I unpacked the system
software, I could almost swear that in there was a loose sheet stating that
rebooting the diagnostic disk to park the heads was not necessary on the 3B1,
despite the message.  However, looking through my manuals, I can't locate it
now.  I wonder, was I hallucinating or sump'n?

Is there an ioctl() or other trick I can do while the UNIX system is running
to park the disk heads?  It sounds like it would be a good thing to do during
extended idle times.
-- 
Dan'l Levy                 UNIX(R) mail:  att!ttbcad!levy, att!cbnewsc!danl
AT&T Bell Laboratories
5555 West Touhy Avenue     Any opinions expressed in the message above are
Skokie, Illinois  60077    mine, and not necessarily AT&T's.