test please delete

[DaveB]

Most of the racks held old IBM PS/2 boxes that hadnt been switched of in about 3 years.

[voodooflux]

Room the size of a football pitch, fully racked out.

Full of large racks eh?

< sniggers >

[DaveB]

So the room was powered down and left quiet for 2 hours while they tested the battery backups and generators.

[DaveB]

Full of large racks eh?

< sniggers >

Hoooooge they were, hoooge!

[DaveB]

But not as big as the industrial steel racking holding the lead acid battery stacks. They had an entire basement level to themselves.

[DaveB]

Anyway, having been sat on our arses for a couple of hours with no coffee and no cold drinks either cos power was off to the whole building, we went back in and started bringing the PS/2's back online.

[DaveB]

It was at this point that I recieved my first introduction to the concept of "stiction" in hardrives.

[DaveB]

95% of the drives in the PS/2's refused to spin back up. Having been left running for so long the lubricant had lost it effectivness and the drive heads had stuck.

[voodooflux]

Anyway, having been sat on our arses for a couple of hours with no coffee and no cold drinks either cos power was off to the whole building, we went back in and started bringing the PS/2's back online.

Isn't that a fundamental human right?

[DaveB]

I spent the next 5 hours working my way down rows of cabinets, opening each system in turn, removing the hard drive, tapping it gently against the cabinet frame and replacing it.