Floppy disks grinding and not working

[Andy001z]

hi,

after unpacking my A1200 for the first time in 5years I was mortified to hear the internal and external floppy drive grinding away when a disk was inserted. I decided to buy a new internal drive and once installed I tested and to my horror I noticed that some disks worked by others (ones left in box in garage) did not and made this horrid noise as it tried to read the disk. The disks do not work.

Anyone fixed this, my disks do not look dirty, and I have tried blasting with air cleaner but still nothing. I know the drive is working as others load up fine with no sound effects.

Ideas?

Cheers
Andy

[vic20owner]

Some disks don't seat fully into the drive. Try pushing them lightly while they are running. Also, sometimes it helps to loosen the screws under the floppy drive in the case... if the drive is too tight it will sometimes cause a nasty grinding noise and failed reads.

[Andy001z]

Thanks for your tips, you reminded me that yes some did used to require a gentle nudge. The problem is I fear its more than that becuase nearly 90% of the ones that had not been in a floopy disk box had the problem. Therefore I assumed some sort of problem has happened to these disks. If not dirt, maybe damp or heat?

Cheers

[CLS2086]

New drives had sinner heads so it's hard for them to read old-tricky amiga floppy.
It's often possible to revive the old drive  :rtfm: .

[Homer]

Floppy disks degrade with time and become unreadable. Its possible that they may have been further damaged by magnetic fields (speakers etc). This is why many people here are using WHDload to copy the disks before they go too far.
I think that the Catweasel adapter on a pc is supposed to be able to read disks that a normal drive cannot, so if they are very important it could be an option.

[Anonymous MOS]

CLS2086 wrote:
New drives had sinner heads so it's hard for them to read old-tricky amiga floppy.
It's often possible to revive the old drive  :rtfm: .

I'd like to be able to revive old drives.   :cry:

[Anthomatic]

I had a big (and I mean BIG) cardboard box of discs which I had accumilated over the years from buying various second hand Amiga systems. I spent a whole week going through them all. Unfortunately, only about 60% actually worked! The others gave out that familiar squeaky/metallic grinding sound...

I wonder if that's something to do with the cleaning pads sticking to the disc surface and causing friction?

Tapping the discs lightly seemed to get them to work but others were beyond help. It seems that just sitting in a sealed cardboard box for a few years can render floppy discs useless.

[Andy001z]

Hmmm, thanks for tips, it does seem however that how you store them will depend on the likelyhood of them working or not. The ones I had in a proper sealed disk box work fine, the ones in the cardboard box / plastic bag look like they have died over time. In fact I can go further and say the ones in the box were kept in the house where as the others in the garage, so possible issue there.

As to what I have lost, well mostly PD demos but worst was some of my old Amos Pro projects, nothing major but a shame all the same.

Andy

[zipper]

 It seems that just sitting in a sealed cardboard box for a few years can render floppy discs useless.

Perhaps, brown cardboard can emit something harmful. But mostly changes in temperature and humidity are harmful. I have disks in different plastic and wooden boxes in my room, 10 to 15 years old and mostly they seem to be fine.