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Subject: Re: How can I determine if my floppy drive is dead?
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2024 17:52:01 +1300
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On 2024-12-15 01:39:41 +0000, super70s said:
> On 2024-12-14 14:53:37 +0000, Sebastian P. said:
>> In article <vintageapplemac-1412240638060001@192.168.1.134>,
>> vintageapplemac@gmail.com (scole) wrote:
>>> 
>>> In my rebuilt PM 9600, I have been unable to successfully mount a floppy
>>> disk since I put it all back together. Any disk I put in, within a second
>>> or so the "Disk Is Unreadable" or whatever error appears and asks if I
>>> want to initialise the disk, and many of these floppies mounted absolutely
>>> fine only a few months ago when my Performa was still operational.
>>> 
>>> So, I'm leaning towards the drive being the issue. I do have 4 or 5 spare
>>> drives so I intend to try them all out, but I've had two drives so far
>>> behave in the same way. Is there any software test I can run to prove if
>>> the drive is operational? Could they need a clean? Would dismantling them
>>> and cleaning help???
>> 
>> I've had this happening with floppy disk drives too. Exactly the same 
>> problem. I can, however, give you some hope - In both my cases, the 
>> reason was simply dirt inside the drive. Both drives do work again now.
>> 
>> I'd take out the drive and open it up, then cleaned it with some pure 
>> alcohol and a cotton swab. I lubricated the moving parts and suddenly 
>> the thing started to read and mount disks again. It was sure great to 
>> see an original 1988 Mac SE floppy drive coming back to life!
>> 
>> These floppy drives are much more reliable that they are usually 
>> credited for. Often it's just the dirt of decades leading to problems 
>> such as yours (another common one being brittle plastic gears breaking, 
>> but even these can be replaced)
>> 
>> It's not hard to do. If you have no experience, watch some YouTube 
>> videos on the matter before you start. They will give you an idea on 
>> what to look for and what to avoid at all costs (e.g. bending the drive 
>> head too much)
>> 
>> Good luck!
> 
> Is it possible to mount a floppy drive on a system running OSX? I've 
> tried that with two different external floppy drives I bought used on 
> eBay and I always get a "not enough power" warning from the floppy 
> drives, even though I tried plugging them directly into the USB port on 
> the machine instead of a hub. I finally just gave up.

It depends on the version of Mac OS X and the type of floppy disk.

HD 1.44MB floppy disks mount fine on my Mac Mini running High Siera 
using a cheap no-name-brand USB floppy drive with a single USB plug via 
either the computer ports or a hub port.

Older 400K and 800K floppy disks won't work since they require the 
special variable speed floppy drives that Apple used, rather than 
standard PC floppy drives. But in this case you would get a "disk not 
recognised" error.

If your drives truly aren't getting enough power, you could try a 
double plug cable. My external DVD-RW drive needs a double-plug cable 
to get enough power.