What are the symptoms of stiction?

The drive won't spin up. It's not a lubrication issue with the spindle motor, the read/write heads are physically stuck to the platters. I don't know the technical details behind what ultimately causes this to occur, just that it's a very common problem with old drives from the 80s-early 90s that park their heads on the platters at power down. Repeatedly power-cycling the drive or physically removing it and giving it a swift rotational twist will usually break it loose and allow it to spin up, but this is often only temporary as the heads will once again stick to the platters if the drive is left unpowered for any appreciable length of time. MFM and RLL drives tend to be the most impacted by stiction, but I have an IDE drive from the late 80s that also has symptoms of stiction.

I throw/threw them out. No more aggrevation.

Maybe it is a lubrication issue with the platter itself. Maybe if you clear the platter and then add another lubricant it will work. Or you'll just finish killing the drive.

Did some brief research, and your right, it definitely does appear to be a breakdown of the lubricant coating on the platters that ultimately causes stiction. I would be extremely hesitant to do anything directly to the platters themselves though, so I may just have to call this drive a loss. 😵

hmmm, well if the drive is a loss anyways... you could build a small clean air box to disassemble the hard drive in and try something. Put it back together and use it. That 'something' is the tricky part. I would personally use something like DeOxit applied to a brand new microfibre lint free cloth used for glasse and gently wipe the platters. It isn't perfect and it might kill the drive but I would try it to see. The DeOxit leaves behind a very thin film of lubrication. I would only try it as a last resort before tossing drive, if it works it could help others too.