Hello all,

This is probably more of a generic hardware problem than a NetBSD one,
but you never know...


My dinky 1.4.2 Sparc Classic's hard disk recently decided to spin
down entirely without warning, accompanied by a plethora of
unexpected disconnect errors on the console.  This was in the
middle of a build of naffing Mozilla, for what it's worth (causing
me more grief than I care to think of, that damn program is...)

Uptime up 'til then was about 50 odd days, so I'm assuming hardware
failure, but does this sound like any known software bug?


If it's not a known software bug, I'm looking to change the disk
(an IBM 6GB SCSI) - I managed to get a tape backup of everything
last night, thank God (time to buy my own tape drive methinks.)

Before I change the drive, though, is there any possibility this
could be a power supply problem in the Classic - the disk
spun down, but it still probed OK from the PROM prompt so obviously
the drive electronics were fine; could a problem on the 12V
power supply line cause these symptoms?  Any known limitations
on the Classic PSU (I'm guessing the 6GB drive I fitted is
considerably 'bigger' than what they shipped with.)  If it was
a 12V supply problem, does anything other than the HD depend on
it (ie. would there be any other symptoms - note I have no FD?)


Thanks for any help; I had a look on netbsd.org and sunhelp, but
couldn't really find anything which would help me out!

Cheers,
Tim.

-- 
Tim Walls