One of the drives in my Linux box, has been giving death rattles since, oh, 1999 or so. (Has given me a great deal of respect for Fujitsu drives). Anyway, it behaves better upside down. And was much happier when constantly running, rather than having APM power it down a lot.

As for stiction, I once read a story from a gentleman who had to take his hard drive for a ten minute drive every time he wanted to use it. Twas the only reliable method to unstick it, he said. I guess, in this case, YMMV :)