Floppy drives

#1 Sat, 23 Jun 2007 - 01:33

The floppy drive in my 6500 seems to have something wrong with it. Either that, or every single floppy in my room has some problems

How would I go about diagnosing what's wrong with my drive and possible fixing it?

On one last thing, can the floppy drive from a compact (the auto-inject) be used in the 6500?

Danke!

:beige:

#2 Sat, 23 Jun 2007 - 02:37

I've gotten floppy drives to work better by vacuuming them.

#3 Sat, 23 Jun 2007 - 03:01

Try formatting a floppy in the suspect drive. If it formats successfully, and you can read from and write to that floppy, then the drive is basically ok, but needs alignment.

If it can't even format its own floppy, then it could be dirty, or has a loose cable or ...

Since it's easy to clean the heads, do that first and retest. If that doesn't fix it, open it up and do a more thorough clean of the mechanism, check cables, etc.

And yes, electrically the auto- and manual-inject versions are compatible. Mechanically, there are minor differences that may require a little modding.

#4 Sat, 23 Jun 2007 - 03:06

And yes, electrically the auto- and manual-inject versions are compatible. Mechanically, there are minor differences that may require a little modding.

I once tried putting a manual-inject one in an LC as I have a dead auto-injecter and a spare manual one, and the slots didn't line up so it was no good, so you'll need to check whether it all lines up correctly in the 6500's case.

#5 Sat, 23 Jun 2007 - 03:56

I could trade you a manual inject drive for the auto inject one if you like.

#6 Sat, 23 Jun 2007 - 04:23

Thanks for all the tips guys. Some compressed air seems to have done the trick. It's working great now