Crutch
Well-known member
So a while ago I bought an Apple 3.5 drive (these are the external 800k drives in Snow White that work on Macs and the Apple IIgs, and can read 800k disks on 64k ROM Macs without the HD20 INIT installed) in beautiful condition. Unfortunately it doesn’t work - it wants to initialize every disk. I opened it up and realized the drive wouldn’t spin, so I tore out the drive mechanism (“Drive One”) and replaced it with a known-good 800k drive (“Drive Two”) I’d salvaged from a Plus which I connected to the Apple 3.5 drive mainboard. It seemed to work but then, after a couple tests, Drive Two wouldn’t spin either (at startup time, it detects a disk, then won’t spin so presumably can’t read it, then ejects the disk as bad). So I pulled Drive Two out of the Apple 3.5 drive and put it into a known-good Plus ... and it still won’t spin! (Drive One won’t either.). It seems like my Apple 3.5 drive is capable of ruining perfectly good floppy mechanisms! Anyway, three questions ...
1. Anybody seen such a thing happen?
2. Anyone know how to fix an 800k drive that won’t spin? (Yes, I have lubed and cleaned the drives, and cleaned the heads ... not that it should matter.)
3. Any ideas if this Apple 3.5 drive can be salvaged somehow?
Thanks for any ideas, this one has me stumped.
1. Anybody seen such a thing happen?
2. Anyone know how to fix an 800k drive that won’t spin? (Yes, I have lubed and cleaned the drives, and cleaned the heads ... not that it should matter.)
3. Any ideas if this Apple 3.5 drive can be salvaged somehow?
Thanks for any ideas, this one has me stumped.