Looking at the pictures: are you shure all the connectors are ok?
No loose contacts, maybe a short with the metal mounting material?
Does the HD casing make contact with something else, ground from
the car maybe and there is some peak on the ground if you hit a
bump?

We had rigidly mounted laptop computers in cars, no problems.
We even have laptops in sailboats, which can survive a force 10
gale easily. Just your regular Toshiba laptops, no problems what
so ever (except for the salt water, but that's another story).

I agree with the springy story, adding springs can make it worse.
Do you have a spare drive to test with, maybe this one is already
faulty and more prone to errors?

Just pack it in foam, with some sort of bracket around it and make
sure it can't move on it's own. Use the dampening and inertia of
the car and you should be safe.

Best regards,
Claudio

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
M. Adam Davis wrote:
> The reason why is very simple - most of the time it's not the bump in
> the car that causes the heads to crash, it's when the hard drive hits
> something else as a result of the bump.

In the system I used so far (w/the servo rubber mounts), I'm sure that
the HD didn't hit anything else.  The rubber was too stiff for the
light weight of the HD, so it seemed almost solid-mounted.  See ...
     http://www.narwani.org/neil/stuff/hd-shock-mount-1.jpg
     http://www.narwani.org/neil/stuff/hd-shock-mount-2.jpg

Yes, there is space (1/4" or more) between the HD and the floor and
ceiling of the enclosure.


> Make sure the hard drive is mounted horizontally.  If mounted vertically
> then the heads may move across the disk during a particularily large
> bump - something you definitely don't want to happen during a disk write.

Yep -- horizontal.

> If this still doesn't work, get a better hard drive, or use a slow, low
> density (10G) 3.5" drive.

Unfortunately, I'm stuck with 2.5" f/size and power reqs (no 12V req on
the 2.5" drives), and planning on using a 30GB drive eventually.


> Make sure that whatever the drive is secured to is also secured to the
> car.  You could use foam on the chassis of the computer, then foam on
> the HD if you like.

So far it wasn't, but heavy enough that I know it didn't move much.
But I see your point here -- a moving enclosure will add more shock/bounce.


> Springs are pretty bouncy.  If the hard drive is moving a lot, it will
> wear faster, and take longer to seek.  Foam is generally better at shock
> absorbing.

So you're suggesting that foam only will be the best solution?

Cheers,
-Neil.

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList
mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu