G Shock sensor, does it work when power is off?

My Vaio has a G shock sensor build in, the Toshiba hard drive that comes in it does not.

Does a G shock sensor work when the laptop is powered off?
What about standby?

 

The Head/s will already be parked in the Landing Zone when the notebook/HDD are off or on standby.

 

Ok clear. The only time I'll might ever drop my laptop is when the power is off I expect.

 

If it comes with a g shock sensor that means that their is an accelerometer built onto the laptop motherboard. In that situation, regardless of a mechanical or ssd installed the system will shut the drive off in order to prevent damage.
I am not sure how that would work if you had an ssd installed.
I second what andy stated.
The heads would already be off of the platter, so no damage would be done if the drive is in standby or off.

Just make sure not to drop your laptop

K-TRON

 

The accelerometer is built into the HDD itself. It is nothing to do with the motherboard.

It does not work if you have SSDs since none of the SSDs have accelerometer. Simply because they do not need it since there are no platters and heads inside...

 

I believe some laptops have it built in, so no matter what hard drive you add the head will park if you drop it (thinkpads for example).

 

ramgen,
philflow's sony has an accelerometer built onto the motherboard, like many ibm thinkpads have. The motherboard accelerometer will trip in just the same fashion a harddrive based one would. If Philflow decided to buy a 2.5" drive with a free fall sensor/accelerometer than his system would have two sensors in it.

K-TRON

 

hmm.. I did not know that fact... I thought the accelerometer only comes within the HDD...

 

My HP dv5z also has an accelerometer on the motherboard. Since I now have an SSD installed, I simply disabled the driver for that device...

 

Is there any conflict if you have two accelerometers, one on the mobo and one on the HDD?

 

No one has really tried dropping their notebooks to find out if these is a conflict b/w the mobo and HDD accelerometers.

BTW, the HDD feature is better, as it is hard-coded into the Drive Firmware, and is more reliable.

 

Andy I actually have proof that free fall sensors do not work.
I talked to Philflow about it a few weeks ago.
Let me pull the PM up and I will attach it here.

EDIT:
my friend dropped her lenovo T61 just yesterday (9-28-08) in class off the desk. about 3 ft high. She tried to grab the system as it was falling, but her efforts lifted the system up again to about 4 ft. The harddrive sensor engaged, but the laptop fell to the ground and she saw everything was frozen. She shut it off, went to power it up, and heard an awful grinding from the harddrive. She had to get a new drive for her system through the school computer service, and she was told her data was irrecoverable. Of course it fell, with the corner with the harddrive inside. Her palmrest was cracked and harddrive was dead.
So I think the sensors do not work very well. Luckily the school just handed her a new laptop, cause of the whole program rpi has.

To give more information, the T61 has a Hitachi 5k160 drive in it. It has the free fall sensor and the data encryption technologies. Even with the harddrive sensor the drive still died, so I guess it is not very full proof.

K-TRON

 

Its not foolproof, but it works to some extent on my lenovo. If I lift up a side of the laptop quickly I can hear the head parking. So I guess it depends how much the laptop "moves" when you drop it, and how long the head stays parked.