16 lines
2.6 KiB
HTML
16 lines
2.6 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>walking drives</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../W.html" title="W"/><link rel="previous" href="walk-off-the-end-of.html" title="walk off the end of"/><link rel="next" href="wall.html" title="wall"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">walking drives</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="walk-off-the-end-of.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">W</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="wall.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="walking-drives"/><dt xmlns="" id="walking-drives"><b>walking drives</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> An occasional failure mode of magnetic-disk drives back in the days
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when they were huge, clunky <a href="washing-machine.html"><i class="glossterm">washing machine</i></a>s. Those
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old <a href="../D/dinosaur.html"><i class="glossterm">dinosaur</i></a> parts carried terrific angular
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momentum; the combination of a misaligned spindle or worn bearings and
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stick-slip interactions with the floor could cause them to
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‘walk’ across a room, lurching alternate corners forward a
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couple of millimeters at a time. There is a legend about a drive that
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walked over to the only door to the computer room and jammed it shut; the
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staff had to cut a hole in the wall in order to get at it! Walking could
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also be induced by certain patterns of drive access (a fast seek across the
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whole width of the disk, followed by a slow seek in the other direction).
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Some bands of old-time hackers figured out how to induce disk-accessing
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patterns that would do this to particular drive models and held disk-drive
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races.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="walk-off-the-end-of.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../W.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="wall.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">walk off the end of </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> wall</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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