Stiction

[Al Kossow]

 >I could imagine that some of the lubricants that they used on the 
 >surfaces could have contributed to stiction. Although, the heads do 
fly >when at speed, they do have to drag on the surface. For this they 
also >put a very thin layer of lub on the surfaces.

Billy Pettit has been surprisingly quiet about all of this...

The one case of lubricant stiction I know of for a fact is in Quantum 
Q540. Apple had a huge field failure problem because of this in HD40s.

They modified the firmware to giggle the head on powerup to help prevent 
landing zone lubricant accumulation.