Bigfoot

Posted by cndctrdj@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 37 comments

Got a machine the other day with a quantum Bigfoot drive. It is not healthy. So im going to try and mess around and see if I can make it work for a little while.

Anyone else like trying to make bad tech stay alive? I mean ive got a ton of zipdrives and I liked packard bells. Maybe I love punishment.

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paralyse78@reddit

When i was still a tech in the late 90s I tried my best to keep customers away from these heaps of garbage but they were popular with the sales staff because they offered decent capacity at a really low price.

Had a stack of at least 10 on the bench waiting on RMA at one point. None were more than a couple years old. They checked all the boxes, assuming the boxes were slow, noisy, big and unreliable.

We did not have many issues with the Fireballs bur the Bigfoot drives soured me on Quantum.

I always recommended WD Caviar for most or Seagate Barracudas for the rich and fortunately I was out of the industry again before those 120gb WD drives ruined the Caviar name in true Bigfoot style. Guess what drive was in my XPS...threw it overnight into the freezer, powered it back up next morning and copied over to a new Seagate before it had a chance to die again.

At least WD recovered after a couple years; Quantum didn't.

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ken_the_boxer@reddit

I still mourn the loss of Conner.

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MWink64@reddit

I've got one that still works. It holds a whole 80MB!

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paralyse78@reddit

Same. It's in my box of parts. Well, footlocker of parts. Also have a WD Caviar 2170 in there, huge 170MB.

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MWink64@reddit

It's a shame Conner used that rubber that tends to degrade into sticky goo, potentially resulting in the actuator getting stuck to it.

My smallest Caviar is an AC2200 (200MB). It has not been cooperating lately.

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paralyse78@reddit

I haven't powered either drive up in many years. My 486 does have a 2540 in it but it also has been not powered up since 2003 or so.

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MWink64@reddit

That's the exact same model Conner I have. I believe I also see what I've dubbed the Seagate Crayola Dominatrix (based on its smell and look).

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paralyse78@reddit

I giggled.

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ken_the_boxer@reddit

Nice :) I still have two CP-3000 (40MB).

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MWink64@reddit

That Bigfoot has to be at least as reliable as the comparable Fireball ST.

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I_am_Partly_Dave@reddit

Yep. I repaired PCs at Computer City in Edina, MN. Quantum Bigfoot drives had something like a 20% failure rate. The kept all us techs busy and the parts guy was swamped with RMAs.

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MWink64@reddit

We did not have many issues with the Fireballs bur the Bigfoot drives soured me on Quantum.

It's the opposite for me. I think of the Fireball ST the same way most think of the IBM 75GXP.

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paralyse78@reddit

Ah, the Deathstar.

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RSMilward@reddit

Not sure if this will help, but years ago I had a hard drive going bad and it sounded like a bearing issue. Since it was mounted in the case flat (not on its side) I flipped it over so the top bearing was taking the load. The drive started up and I was able to retrieve all of my data. Best of luck !

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cndctrdj@reddit (OP)

Haha. I did this with the Playstation 1 back in the day. The cd drive didnt want to work... flipped it over and it was fine ever since

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EpsilonMajorActual@reddit

I haven't tried to get one of these to work but I have had some success with other drives using the stick it in the freezer for a while method. Worked just long enough to get data off of it.

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cndctrdj@reddit (OP)

Ive never heard of the freezer method. But its been mentioned 2 times in this thread. Ive got to try it out

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siliconlore@reddit

The Bigfoot drives were notoriously bad even when new.

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cndctrdj@reddit (OP)

I know. Ive got about 4 of them at this point. None work.

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BeepFixer@reddit

I kept one for pure Nostalgia - and sure it crashed within a year like every bigfoot

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Strict-Air2434@reddit

Back in the day... Standard on the Compaq low end desktops. Four of four of a customer's machines had drive failures. What pieces of shit.

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MWink64@reddit

I'll be the odd one out. I have 2 Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) and both still work. If we go purely based on percentage (and ignore the small sample size), that makes them among my most reliable drives. In my experience, it was the Quantum Fireball ST that was the nightmare.

BTW, the Quantum Bigfoots are the only drives I know of besides the WD Raptor X where the actuator is partially visible without opening the drive.

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H0verb0vver@reddit

Terrible. Mine didn't last 6 months and I lost a bunch of mods that I made myself. Still sick of that.

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docshipley@reddit

Bigfoot drives are my favorite!

For putting under the feet of heavy furniture so it doesn't ruin the carpet.

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GG-McGroggy@reddit

It's actually fairly easy to determine which Quantum Bigfoots work and which will not. It's literally printed right on the device itself. Look for the phrase "Bigfoot". If you find it, that's a crappy one. 100% accurate test.

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cndctrdj@reddit (OP)

Nice

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biff_tyfsok@reddit

I RMAd so many of those things when doing contract support in a corporate HQ full of Compaq Deskpros -- it was miraculous once we started getting Western Digitals back for those.

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DigitalLife2@reddit

I fixed enough zip dives back in the day of the Click of Death

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Primo0077@reddit

How'd you do that? I have a USB 250 drive I think is suffering that I'd like to fix.

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Js987@reddit

I’m curious too, aside from if it had something like a very obviously bent head I can’t remember ever getting one to work again long term, they were always a remove and replace item when I was working on computers back in that timeframe.

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cndctrdj@reddit (OP)

Inquiring minds would like to know. How did you fix them.

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DigitalLife2@reddit

Check the head alignment as they normally went askew, also the sensor that is near the windows of the disk, if it got dust bunnies on it to block it that also caused issues. If the heads are ripped from the arm, it will need new ones installed & aligned.

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