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SE/30 floppy drive now fails

MJ313

MJ313

6502
So I was checking on some floppies that I have, in my SE/30. One may have been dirty? Now my floppy drive has failed, I fear.

I now keep getting an error that the floppy disk is unreadable and needs to be initialized. I tested a number of known good disks, creating fresh ones on my 7600 and they all failed in the SE/30. Once I ejected them from the SE/30 and tested them again in my 7600, they were unreadable there as well, but at least I could reformat them. Trying to reformat on the SE/30 led to an error that the disk is defective, which isn't true.

Well, I took the drive apart and cleaned the heads carefully following instructions. Swapped the heads with alcohol. Lubed the drive while I was at it. After reassembly, no change in floppy read behavior. :(

so, can one dirty disk hose my Superdrive?  Any hints on how to fix this auto inject floppy drive?

Thanks!

 
ive seen this before. The heads get magnetized. Try demagnetizing the heads. 

Two ways this happens, well 3. one is poor storage near large magnets. speakers, etc. 

Other ways include the disk flap being magnetically charged, or something going wrong with the head bias circuitry putting a strong DC bias on the head, therefore magnetizing the head. bad capacitors will do this, in the drive. 

 
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Sounds like your Bournes Filter failed, that is, if the heads are OK, the only thing that could do this is the Bournes Filter.

Take out the heads and open it slightly as if you were about to clean it, and look at the spring the top head rests on. If it perfectly flat? If it is, then its the Bournes filter of SWIM Chip and I'm betting on the Bournes Filter. Those things fail if you look at them the wrong way.

Techknight can be right too. Got a head demagetizer? I have not seen one since the 1980s, though it still might be in my bedroom - lol!

 
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Well then! Thanks for the incredibly fast responses. That's very helpful.

Now I will go and figure out how to de-magnetize the heads and investigate the Bournes filter.

 
the bourns filter wont kill the data on the floppy disk unless you are telling it to write/format. 

Try flipping the lock lever on the disk, if it still corrupts it, its magnetized heads, or the bias supply is running when the disk isnt being called to write. 

 
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well you could connect the floppy drive from your 7600 to the se/30 and see if it still does it.

otherwise it does kinda sound like a magnetized floppy head.

 
Yeah, I don't even get to the point of being able to write to the disk.  As soon as I put a disk in, I am told it's unreadable. If I try to format in the SE/30, it farts out a borked disk.

Will any tape head demagnetizer work? Or are they not all equal? Thanks again!

 
uniserver said:
well you could connect the floppy drive from your 7600 to the se/30 and see if it still does it.

otherwise it does kinda sound like a magnetized floppy head.
Click to expand...
That, sir, is an excellent idea. When I crack the SE/30 open I will give it a shot. my back room currently looks like a tech bomb went off, so best to add to the mess. Oh yeah, and parts of the Plus are around too... yeah you'll be seeing that in your future. :D

 
thought id throw in my 'thumpense' worth here.

bening a musician , I had to de-magnetize recording heads a good few years ago. The gadget was called a degausser if memory serves

I don't know if the next part was necessary but the procedure was to never switch the degausser on next to anything magnetic (disc drives, heads etc etc). The instructions said

to leave the room, go outside, switch it on, then goto the heads in question and just hold the degauser next to the head.

The degausser emits random magnetic fields, so being close to a harddrive would not be a good idea.

But as I said, it was 20 years ago, and I could be wrong. But worth checking out , just to be sure.

 
You can use a big 230watt soldering gun as its transformer based. In close proximity. Itll demagnetize the heads and everything around it.

Same process. Swirl and back away

 
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Now I am kind of at a loss. The good news is the other floppy drive from the 7600 works fine when attached to the SE/30, so I guess that rules out the Bourns filter being bad. I tried the degmagnetizer and while it was truly a very exciting moment in my life, the result was no change. I cleaned the heads again just to make sure. If anyone has any other ideas, I would appreciate it!

Thanks

 
you could try adjusting the heads clamping pressure spring.  for me that is usually  the only issue i have with those drives. other then basic clean and lube

 
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you could try adjusting the heads clamping pressure spring.  for me that is usually  the only issue i have with those drives. other then basic clean and lube
Click to expand...
can you give more explanations, as i have also a floppy which didn't worked after a good clean up.

 
you remove the heads,

To do this you take out 2 screws, the ones holding the round bar in place and it pulls right out.

carefully pulling out the top and bottom head flexible cables, with some tiny electronics needle nose pliers.

There is the spring (top and bottom) head clamping adjustment adjustment perch (3 positions), i usually adjust the spring to the next highest perch. increasing tension.

and usually it works fine.

 
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Working with dad long ago fixing Macs and learning a lot from him, I have to ask, where are these "tension screws?" I have never seen screws on the head of the floppy drive to do adjustments with. Mind if possible to post up a pic of it? Are they part of the newer drives found in PowerPCs with the black doorways?

 
I'll try and make sense of all of that later tonight when I have it in front of me... right now I can't visualize "head clamping adjustment adjustment perch"

Thanks for pointing me in some direction that may work!

 
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