Repair Apple M0130 External? Disks not loading

#1 Thu, 19 Sep 2013 - 03:43

I have an external Apple floppy drive, model M0130. It doesn't take any disks I try to feed into it. Any given disk will only go so far.

Here's a picture of its internals: http://i.imgur.com/3lKgwaD.jpg

As you can see from the top middle part of the photo, the disk goes in as far as it can. No other mechanisms are triggered, nothing happens. It just sits loose in there.

#2 Thu, 19 Sep 2013 - 06:13

Hmm, I'm surprised I didn't think of this but I do remember reading about lubricating 400k floppy drives: http://www.vintagemacworld.com/400kflop.html

I don't have lubricant at the moment, but I suspect this might solve my problem. Feel free to either ignore, or confirm this for me if you've experienced this

Thanks guys

~Jay

#3 Sun, 22 Sep 2013 - 18:42

It's a grease problem. Remove the old crusty stuff, apply new stuff and cycle the loading mechanism a few times and it will be fine.

#4 Sun, 22 Sep 2013 - 22:23

I use AGS White Lithium Grease for lubricating (among other things) any auto-inject floppy drives I encounter, and it seems to work quite well (when used in moderation, of course; if I use too much, it actually tends to make things worse, especially when it's cold).

You can get 35.4g squeeze tubes at a hardware store (in the US; don't know about elsewhere).

Good luck on that drive!

c

#5 Mon, 23 Sep 2013 - 00:46

I use dielectric grease myself. Useful for both heatsinks and for lubrication. It's about $7 for a pretty big tube.