My HD floppy drive FB-357A is DYING! Help!

My precious FB-357A seems to be less and less reliable because it refuses to write to any floppy and it sometimes refuses to recognise a floppy has been inserted.

Sometimes also, the icon for the inserted floppy will vanish them come right back after a few griding noise in the drive.

I strongly suspect the pair of switches for write protect and floppy detect are failling because of dust in it or rusting (invisible from the outside).

I have an FB-354 here I could sacrifice which is neraly identical and has the same type of switches.

Good or bad idea to cannibalize the FB-354 switch?

Can the switch in the 357A be fixed without going through a solder job?

Any other suggestion ?

Thank you all!

[Protek]

I think the WP and FD switches are just stuck due to dust. They can be sensitized with electronics cleaning spray and a pair of tweezers. Spray the switches with the cleaner and then carefully move the switch up and down with the tweezers until the spring will lift the switch all the way up by itself.

Don't cannibalize a working FB-354, if you need the switches. Use a PC drive instead.

Protek wrote:
I think the WP and FD switches are just stuck due to dust. They can be sensitized with electronics cleaning spray and a pair of tweezers. Spray the switches with the cleaner and then carefully move the switch up and down with the tweezers until the spring will lift the switch all the way up by itself.

Don't cannibalize a working FB-354, if you need the switches. Use a PC drive instead.

I should have been more generous with details here.

Both the FD and WP switches move properly up and down. They aren't stuck and they both go all the way up by themselves. However, the symptoms I get seem to suggest they don't contact reliably when pressed down.

As for the FB-354, well, it is a faulty drive. Also, PC drives don't have the exact same type of switches that will fit neatly into the switch slot of the 357A.

I also realized after a careful analysis that the two springs which bring down the diskette when inserted seem to have less effect as if they had tired over time. So I took the liberty of putting the springs that were in the 354 into the 357A and it almost fixed the problem.

But formatting a disk remains a risky operation. Every now and then I get a "Disk removed" error message.

Is there a particular brand or make of electronics cleaner you would recommend ?

[marcfrick2112]

Hello, I would recommend 'Tun-O-Wash' made by Chemtronics in
the USA, I believe a firm called Tri-state electronics carries
it. Honestly, I use it mostly on older game consoles, hi-fi equipment, etc.
 but it has worked great for me....Bad points: it's about $20.00 USD
per can, and should really be used in a well-ventilated area,
the fumes can bother a person

Good luck with your drive, my one HD drive lasted about 6 months
before it died for no reason in my A1200T, maybe they are very sensitive to dust?
.....

[Amiduffer]

Well, if either of you want to take a chance, I have this clean internal HD floppy:

Rev B model FB-357
serial no. 10207925
Chinon ind, inc. Made in Japan

which I think went in an A2000 because it has a beige front plate. I got it for $1, and it doesn't fit in my A3000D quite right (wrong button too). I never got it to work, so, if you want to take a chance I'll send it to you for $1 and the cost of postage.

[HyAmi]

When I read this kind of topic, I wonder why there still isn't a SD/CF floppy replacement available. (it isn't available, right? Or did I miss something?)

 :idea: Jens, please help us out!

HyAmi wrote:
When I read this kind of topic, I wonder why there still isn't a SD/CF floppy replacement available. (it isn't available, right? Or did I miss something?)

 :idea: Jens, please help us out!

The 357A is a very special drive. It spins high density floppies at 150 RPM instead of the normal 300 to maintain compatibility with the good old paula which does not directly support the higher data tranfer rates normally required for such format.

[Ratte]

There is project on a1k.org for an hd-drive replacement with normal peecee-drives.

< A1k HD-FloppyFix >

Seems to be finalized in some days/weeks.

(Feel free to post in english on a1k.org)  ;-)

[Mark]

Try manually depressing the switches over and over, 50 times or so, after using a good contact cleaner on them, not to unstick them as suggested in a previous post but to remove tarnish from the contacts.

I have no experience with the HD floppy but what you describe is a common problem with DD drives in the A3000.  With the DD drive, the contacts in the write protect detection switch become coated with tarnish.  Those switches are the self-wiping type however, which means the contacts slide against each other as they make contact.  Manually depressing the switch repeatedly, maybe 50 times, burnishes the contacts and restores reliable operation.

Mark wrote:
Try manually depressing the switches over and over, 50 times or so, after using a good contact cleaner on them, not to unstick them as suggested in a previous post but to remove tarnish from the contacts.

I have no experience with the HD floppy but what you describe is a common problem with DD drives in the A3000.  With the DD drive, the contacts in the write protect detection switch become coated with tarnish.  Those switches are the self-wiping type however, which means the contacts slide against each other as they make contact.  Manually depressing the switch repeatedly, maybe 50 times, burnishes the contacts and restores reliable operation.

Now talk about one incredibly useful piece of information... 2 little drops of anhydrous alcohol, a few dozen of presses and back to life my drive is!

Sure enough, the switches in my faulty FB-354 had exactly the same problem.

It sure did the job and that's something every FB-354 FB357A owner should know. I'll be sure to keep a copy of this text for the future.

Thanx Mark!

[HyAmi]

@Eslapion
actually, I wasn't refering to a mechanical drive, but to a compact flash card (or SD) holding ADF images with some logic that emulates a floppy drive. There was a Russian Amigan building such a device and it's also the way Dennis loads his images for the Minimig. Something like that available would definitly rock.

But I haven't heard yet of floppy emulators available that do not use another computer.

[T3000]

Mark wrote:
a common problem with DD drives in the A3000.  ...Manually depressing the switch repeatedly, burnishes the contacts and restores reliable operation.

Nice bit of info.
Looks like it's time to pull the case off the A3000 and do some floppy work. smite the dust bunnies...

[rkauer]

If you have the Amstrad A357, simply buy a new Sony
 MPF920-E.

To convert the drive, just swap pins 2<>34 (I've done it INSIDE the drive of mine). Works perfectly, but in 880k mode only (I don't have an Amstrad A357 myself :-( ).

If you find a Sony 920-3, there is a strap on the left edge to select it to DF0: or DF1:. Need to swap the 2<>34 pins, too (not to use with A537, but directly on cable).