Floppy drive wont stop ejecting.

[Solvalou]

I have seemed to come accross this issue a few times in the past but never botherd to look much into it, that is until now. I am curious as to how I can fix this now as I have run out of spare floppy drives.

Esentially, I had replaced the intermal 3.5" floppy drive in the Macintosh Plus with a previously working example. When I did that, as soon as I switched it on all it does is keep going through the eject motor cycle over and over. Anyone have any idea why it would do this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[krye]

I have the same problem on my external 800. I was copying a ton of disks to my Plus's external drive and after about cranking through about 100 disks, it starting making a weird crunching noise as it ejected. Didn't sound good at all. I let it sit for a few days with the intention of opening it up and looking to see if anything was out of place. I totally forgot about it a popped a floppy in it. When I ejected the disk, it struggled again, ejected the disk after making a weird noise, and is now stuck in the eject cycle.

 

[nvdeynde]

You'll have to disassemble the floppy drive and casing of the eject motor. There's a switch inside that probably has dirt on the contacts it that needs to be cleaned. Otherwise it's possible the gearbox of the eject motor is damaged.

Here's a good article how to take the drive apart and fix the eject mechanism

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1354182

 

[Solvalou]

Ah thanks ok il have a look into it.

 

[krye]

Thanks. Awesome link.

I'll tear into mine this weekend and see what's what. I have 2 other drives that are damaged. Hopefully I can do a transplant if it turns out to be damaged gears too.

 

[trag]

There were a couple of version of the auto-inject floppy (or was that the 800K vs. 1.44MB versions) which required different cables, red stripe vs. yellow stripe. If you use the wrong cable with the floppy drive, it will continuously eject.

My memories on this matter are hazy, but there was definitely a continuously ejecting floppy because of the wrong cable issue back when. If you did not replace your floppy cable, perhaps the drive you installed is of the opposite type from your old floppy drive.

 

[mcdermd]

I don't know if it is the same but the red and yellow striped cables are also a difference between 400k and 800k drives.

 

[nvdeynde]

There are indeed different cables for the 400K and 800K drives where the wrong cable can cause constant ejecting of the disk. However I think the cable is not the issue here as the drive started failing while it worked before.

400K drives NEED pin 20 and 9 (spindle speed and -12V respectively), whereas some models of 800K drives can get confused by these two being connected.

The early drives use the cable with the yellow wire, the later models use the cable with red wire.

I think with the red cable not all pins are connected.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

So then in theory, one could simply remove those two pins from the connector of an 800k drive and then be able to use either type of cable with that drive? That seems odd because I don't recall any missing/snipped wires or unoccupied connector holes in 800k drive cables.

We should figure out exactly what the difference is and document it in the wiki.

 

[mcdermd]

You can see that the 400k cable (red) has all of it's pins connected while the 800k cable (yellow) is missing pin 9.

400k cable

800k cable

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Wow, I've never noticed that before.

 

[mcdermd]

Sorry -

the 800k cable (yellow) is missing pin 9.

... and pin 20.

 

[xilly]

I know I know, the last post was in 2012
But still so relevant for me

I have a Lisa XL and I'm trying to install a 800ko floppy drive
I have the same issue with the auto-eject motor running nonstop when I connect it to the Lisa internal cable

From what I'm reading, I have the issue described above
You can see that the 400k cable (red) has all of it's pins connected while the 800k cable (yellow) is missing pin 9. and pin 20

I would like to cut the pin #9 and the pin #20 of the drive to see what happen

Stupid question :-( When I'm looking at the rear of the flopper, where is the pin #9 and the pin #20?

 

[volvo242gt]

Or, just get a black lettered 800K drive from someone like Herb Johnson (retrotechnology.com) and use that with your current cable. Due to the ROMs, your Macintosh XL will treat it as a 400K drive, of course.

 

[xilly]

Tx volvo242gt
I'll check retrotechnology.com
I have 2 red-lettered floppies so that's was I was curious to remove the pins
I do have the 800kpo rom and even the special bracket to install the 800ko floppy

 

[xilly]

With the help of Herb Johnson, I was able to find the pin1 on my 800ko (yellow cable) floppy drive

On my lisa, the cable is red

So I removed the pin 9 and 20 on the floppy,and it... WORKED!

I can format and read 800ko disks!

 

[MOS8_030]

Hmm, very interesting! I might try that with my XL.

 

[xilly]

yup, you just need the 800ko and a bracket

You can also build a bracket. I'm doing that right now