Both my floppy drives just got killed!

[Abou27]

Today I received Alien Breed 3D that I bought on eBay.  Immediately put both disks in my A1200 in order to install game straight onto harddisk.  Instant very loud squealing from both drives.  Somewhat startled I was unable to respond for a while!  Squealing stopped with one disk being displayed as non-dos and the other not being shown on Worbench at all.  Disks removed; others inserted - not recognised.  PC0: and PC1: mounted and external drive just about read PC formatted disks  but says they have errors and occasionally declares an error in the file allocation table.  Having looked closely at the murdering disks, I find that there appear to be scratches on the surfaces.  I can only assume that they were unused and therefore dusty and that the disk drive heads have been scratched.  Is this likely to be the case?  Would a disk-head cleaner help or am I going to be replacing drives?  Has anyone else experienced anything like this?  As you can imagine I was tearing my hair out in anger and have only just calmed down enough to write this.  If anyone could help I would be very grateful.  e-Bay ain't all good, eh?
 

[Lo]

I killed my expensive HD floppy in the same manner you describe, except it was one of my OWN old disks. :-x

The second you here that squealing sound, EJECT!!!

I can't belive I wanted the old game to work so bad, I let the drive squeal away for a while  :cry:

I think the "mechanism lubricant" can dry out in the floppy and there's mildew, dirt etc, the foam breaking down from ozone.

Sorry to be of no help, but I will closely follow this thread for answers as well. :-?

[Abou27]

That's alright.  Good to know I'm not alone.  Hard to react quickly enough, isn't it?
I withdraw my final comment regarding e-Bay as I will probably looking for drives on there pretty soon!
So, does anyone think my drives are recoverable or should I just stop whinging and get new ones?!
 

[SHADES]

It's rare that spinning floppies ruin drives completly.
Unless the little sliding hatch has bent or become unshaped and pulled on the heads, it's more likely the disk squeels on the inside jackets. These jackets are there to remove small dust particles etc but with time also can become flat and have a greater surface area to the plastic floppy biscuit.  The squeeling is probably just slowing down disk rotation and therefore you are getting mis-reads.

A good claen of your drives heads carefully with a cotton bud and tape head cleaner (same used in VCR or cassette) should work, or use a floppy disk cleaner.
The game may also be ok. If you are very careful, buy new disks, pop open the case and exchange the biscuits.  Wourst case is heads are dirty. Miss alignment from reading the disks is very unlikely.

Hope this helps.
I have successfully transplanted many biscuits (inner round disk) into new jackets and read them successfully.
Good luck.
 

[Abou27]

Thanks! I'll give it a go.

[Jagabot]

Now, don't try this at home kids... but...

As a last ditch effort, I have had sucess in submerging (entirely) a "dead" Amiga drive into a bath of rubbing alcohol for an hour or so, then blowing out the unit with my air compressor (from a distance!) and finally letting the drive sit to completely evaporate for a day. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't then turn around and sell that drive on eBay without noting that it had that done to it, but it *has* revived drives that were siezed or had spinning problems due to dust and oil buildups on moving parts (especially if the drive is in an environment with a smoker).

You could also just take it apart and clean it up with some q-tips and alcohol (that's what vcr cleaner is) but the soaking method is much more "mad scientist" and far more rewarding emotionally.  :-D