Drive Bench: Vintage Seagate ST-4038 - In the PC

[FerralVideo]

@MrComputerfan

Yes.

Since I created this video, I must have knocked off a component or two while handling it. It now makes a *SHUNK* sound after spinning up, instead of the seek-test.  I doubt it'd do anything in the PC anymore. Sad, really...

[rodneyjayl]

Nice job - good audio comments. Thanks.

I have one of these babies. It is a little dirty as it's been in the attic for a number of years.

[FerralVideo]

@benposeno - A voicecoil drive is one where a coil, similar to the one in your speakers, is wedged between two very high power magnets. A current passed through this coil causes the head arm to jerk across the platters. Special coding on the platters tells the heads where they are. All modern hard drives use this style.

On the flip side, a stepper motor drive uses a stepping motor, like in a floppy drive. It knows where it is based on how many steps it's made.

[the731272]

i think it should be ok it just said free space

[Messerschmitt262a2a]

what model number has that 1,2mb 5,25" floppy drive?

[obiwankenobi28]

so this HDD is like just under 4 real Mega Btyes in size which would be 4038 KB? or is it larger?

[FerralVideo]

No. The 4038 is merely a model number. The drive actually holds 31 megabytes. 39 unformatted. ... That's a lot of formatting...

[mima14031985]

This is a voice coil drive. I have 2 in my collection and I opened one to see what's inside. I found (and I was quite surprised) a voice coil actuator instead of the classic stepper motor. Also listen to the "tclack" noise that the drive makes when turned out. A stepper motor drive wouldn't ever do a noise like this when parking the heads.

[FerralVideo]

It's a stepper. They didn't have voice coil back when this was made, that I'm aware of.

Checkit ver 3.0, if I'm reading that little lettering at the top of the menu screen right.

[Messerschmitt262a2a]

i knew that^^ a too wired sound for a stepper motor... but i think they had voice coils drives in that time, i have one at home but they were too expensive for private use... i think around the late 80s they got cheaper and the only possibility to store more data and are still used today

isn´t this drive similar to the st4096? i already saw one of these opened :-)

[FerralVideo]

The model numbers look similar.

I'm sorely tempted to open this drive /just/ to find out what the heck's going on in there.

Although the fact there's a PCB mounted on top of the drive may hinder "running while open" attempts. The top PCB appears to handle the head-stack actuator, whether it's voice coil or stepper, and also data coming off the disks.

But here's some food for thought.

Why would a voice coil drive seek slower than a stepper drive?

[Messerschmitt262a2a]

i didn´t thought that the st4038 is voice coil because i already saw an open st4096 (with stepper) and the sound can just be a stepper...

i just read some other comments and there someone said that it is a voice coil... that´s the reason why i asked

[cr1901]

@Messerschmitt262a2a I've open one of these up before and can verify that it's a voice coil drive which uses an actuator carriage instead of an actuator arm. I kept the carriage assembly after I scrapped the drive (I accidentally killed it T_T) for use in hobby projects. I should have pictures somewhere.

[benposeno]

@FerralVideo dont think im stupid but what is a voice coil drive

[cr1901]

@FerralVideo ST-4038 is a voice coil drive. It may be slower than some stepper motor drives because it uses an read/write head carriage instead of an actuator arm to move the heads.

[MrComputerfan]

@FerralVideo Is the ST-4038 dead?

[Messerschmitt262a2a]

-is this really a voice coil hard drive? (i red that in a comment in another video) i would say its a stepper motor...

-what version of checkit do you use?

[DURAMATRIX112]

sounds like its printing something as it gets faster and faster lol

[ScottieNiven]

Run hdmotion! runs on a floppy.