Mac SE internal floppy won't recognize disks

[Punkyclown]

Hi All, the internal drive in my Mac SE would not eject the disk even though it did load the system no problem. So I removed it and bought the gear(s) online I needed to fix it. I replaced the gear and now my drive ejects with no problem (I feel good). But now when I start my SE and insert a disk in the internal drive all that happens is after a few seconds it spits out the floppy disk and the screen image shows a X flashing on the floppy icon for a few seconds and then returns to the flashing question mark. If I boot my system from an external floppy drive and then insert a floppy into the internal drive after a few seconds I get a message telling me the disk is not initialized and would I like to initialize it. When I say yes it does nothing for a few seconds and then tells me the initialization failed. Is someone familiar with this issue and can they help me?ThanksBrad Hansen

 

[davidg5678]

I would first recommend lubricating the floppy drive in the SE along with cleaning the drive heads with isopropyl alcohol on Q-tips. This will probably fix things. The drive may not be able to move into all of the positions of the floppy disk, so it reports it as corrupt.

It is possible that you somehow misaligned the drive heads when you replaced the eject gear. The drive would then be out of sync with the data on the disk and report it as corrupt. This can happen if you pull the heads too far apart from each other. This would also deform the drive head springs and prevent them from pressing down on top of the disk the correct way. I do not think it is possible for the user to realign the heads, and doing so will probably cause more harm than good. 

For lubrication and drive cleaning, I recommend following this tutorial: (pay attention to the "clock position" part of the eject motor he talks about -it may also be incorrect from before.)

 

[Punkyclown]

Hi David, I think you are exactly correct, I misaligned the disk heads and deformed the springs.  Have not

found any one who could suggest or show a fix.  So I have moved on, bought another internal drive on

eBay, quite cheaply, my luck.  Working well, thanks for the thorough explanation.

Brad Hansen