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Author Topic: Is my floppy disk drive broken?  (Read 18416 times)

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Offline TribbleSmasher

Re: Is my floppy disk drive broken?
« on: May 08, 2020, 07:38:47 PM »
The disk drive might be broken, dis-adjusted, dirty inside, worn out; the floppy cable might be loose; the disk you tried might be a game you cannot read from Workbench due to copy protection, the disk may be unformatted ... ;)
Some drives have been reported to contain a leaking capacitor, which may cause faults too.
The floppy drives for any Amiga are basically the same, besides the rare HD floppies, but for every Amiga you need a different eject button or front bezel form factor.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2020, 07:40:52 PM by TribbleSmasher »
 

Offline TribbleSmasher

Re: Is my floppy disk drive broken?
« Reply #1 on: May 09, 2020, 10:39:07 AM »
You can try. Some Mitsumi drives are a little bit bigger, some Panasonics a little longer...
 

Offline TribbleSmasher

Re: Is my floppy disk drive broken?
« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2020, 08:48:45 AM »
The internal floppy is alway present unless disabled. When you get this df0:???? icon then there is something wrong. For example the little internal switch in the drive that detects a disk is inserted is faulty.
You can try to bootup the machine with a disk already inserted at startup.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2020, 08:49:17 AM by TribbleSmasher »
 

Offline TribbleSmasher

Re: Is my floppy disk drive broken?
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2020, 07:51:23 PM »
Did you open up the computer? Maybe only the floppy cable is loose. And don't spray some fluids inside the drive, first try compressed air for instance.
 

Offline TribbleSmasher

Re: Is my floppy disk drive broken?
« Reply #4 on: May 11, 2020, 11:57:23 AM »
Revising a floppy drive is actually not that difficult. Just don't do anything you are going to regret later. ;D

If you  carefully lift only the top cover you might already see the sticky grease or pieces of dirt inside. Cotton swabs are good, but from the little opening you are not gonna see much. The head is sensible, for instance.

Search on Youtube for "amiga floppy drive repair".
 

Offline TribbleSmasher

Re: Is my floppy disk drive broken?
« Reply #5 on: May 14, 2020, 08:47:53 AM »
It can't be disabled, as you can see it. To disable it you need to go to the early boot menu (hold both mouse buttons on startup) and deactivate it there for the actual session only.

It must be a problem with the floppy itself, either cable, de-adjustment or dirt, or the aforementioned little capacitor on the drive leaking.
If you have an external second drive try this just to make sure the fault is not in the chipset on the motherboard.