Floppy replacement on an A500

[DocSane]

Hi all,

Well, I hit a slight snag with one of my eBay sales. My old 500 apparently arrived with a broken floppy ejection button. The buyer says that he doesn't want to return it, but the damage would normally be a show stopper. I want to do right by the guy, so I want to know if there's a reasonably-priced (i.e. in the $15-$20 range) replacement for an Amiga low-density drive that I can send the guy as a replacement. He paid me over $100 for my A500, so I feel I owe it to him to get a working drive.

Does anyone here have a line on sources and compatible drives? I've already found the page over at http://www.freewebs.com/computolio/amiga_floppy_compatibility.html, but the drives listed are so old that I wonder if any of the newer variants might also be usable. For example, I can buy TEAC FD-235HF series floppy drives fairly easily and cheaply, but I don't know if the newer variants work properly. Does anyone out there have some experience with this?

Thanks!

[Phantom]

I have the same model in my A1200 (my first Mitsumi went off), and I don't have any problems till now.

[weirdami]

is it just the plastic button cover thing that's broken so he can still eject things but just needs a stick or are the drive innards broken so no ejecting is possible?

[DocSane]

weirdami wrote:
is it just the plastic button cover thing that's broken so he can still eject things but just needs a stick or are the drive innards broken so no ejecting is possible?

You know, that's an excellent question. I'll try and find out from him and get some pictures, too.

[TjLaZer]

Years ago my A500's eject button broke.  I was able to reglue it on easily.

[DocSane]

Well, it seems the buyer was just satisfied with me offering to buy him a replacement drive and told me not to take it any further. So, I'm technically off the hook, but I'm still interested if anyone out there has a line on where to get replacement floppy drives for the 500 that don't cost as much as the 500 itself.

Again, I ask, does anyone have a line on this?

[TjLaZer]

The drives that would fit are very rare and hard to find.  You might have to actually buy another whole A500 to salvage the drive from it.  You can get other PC drives that are modded to work, but you would have to hack the A500 case to get it to fit.

Has the buyer tried to see if the eject button can be fixed?  I as able to glue mine back on and it was very secure and worked great.  It's just a plastic piece that clips on.

[DocSane]

TjLaZer wrote:

Has the buyer tried to see if the eject button can be fixed?  I as able to glue mine back on and it was very secure and worked great.  It's just a plastic piece that clips on.

He said that he still has a 500 and that this was essentially a backup, so he does have a drive to use if one machine breaks. He told me not to worry about it and that I didn't need to send him a new drive or anything, but I'm still trying to help him get a line on getting a working one. I'll ask him about the possibility of gluing it back together.

[a1200]

Link

[ChuckT]

My eject button broke years ago and I don't know why but I've always used a pen cap to eject the disks and the glue never fixed it so I never bothered to do anything about it.

[Colani1200]

DocSane wrote:
I can buy TEAC FD-235HF series floppy drives fairly easily and cheaply, but I don't know if the newer variants work properly. Does anyone out there have some experience with this?

According to this site (in german), there are revisions that can simply be rejumpered for Amiga use. Haven't tried it myself though.

[DocSane]

a1200 wrote:
Link

Excellent! Cheers for the link!