I had a hard drive like that at work once, I had to smack the drive to get it to spin up ( either with the power on or off, it worked either way ). It was a Dell tower and it was a brilliant design as I could get the drive out, spun up and back in within seconds. I left the screws out because the drive bay held it in place quite well and they just slowed me down.

I got the drive replaced quite quickly, so I don't know how long it would have lasted at that point.

smf