SuperDisk Drive (USB) Blinking Light Issue?

[LazarusNine]

Hey there,

I have an Imation USB SuperDisk drive that I use very infrequently with my G4 Mac. It's exhibiting a blinking light issue both when plugged in and nothing in the drive and when a floppy is present. I don't think it's the mechanism of the drive, because it's seen so little use and just started happening suddenly. Might is be a power supply issue? I've ordered a replacement power supply, but I thought I'd check here to see if anyone else can weigh in. Any thoughts? Here's a short video of what I mean:

SuperDisk drive issue:

Regards,

LazarusNine

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

"Little use" on mechanical drives can be worse than heavy use. Things gum up and fail.

 

[techknight]

that flashing is likely the power supply, or the controller sensing an error condition. 

 

[LazarusNine]

that flashing is likely the power supply, or the controller sensing an error condition.

Thanks for the perspective, techknight. I'll update the thread once the new power supply arrives.

 

[LazarusNine]

It's not pretty, but I have a solution to the SuperDrive problem. It was an issue with the power adapter. I purchased a replacement adapter, but the input plug was the wrong size. I cut off the plug from the previous adapter and spliced it together with the new one. The SuperDrive works like a charm. I wonder how many more of these have failed and the whole drives have been thrown out as a result?

http://s172.photobucket.com/user/mac1984user/media/4739A651-4F39-46E9-8032-FAF27E2DC281_zpsalfzdbae.jpg.html

 

[LazarusNine]

Sorry - here's the embedded image:

http://s172.photobucket.com/user/mac1984user/media/4739A651-4F39-46E9-8032-FAF27E2DC281_zpsalfzdbae.jpg.html'>

 

[techknight]

got a funky looking primary socket plug on it eh. 

 

[Macdrone]

Overseas

 

[LazarusNine]

Or underseas? It's a UK plug (which is used a few other places as well - Hong Kong, I believe).

 

[techknight]

that explains why I dont recognize it. 

 

[Apache Thunder]

If the IDE to USB board gone bad, one solution may be to bypass it to see if it's a problem with the drive. The USB to IDE board is actually housed in the cable you connect to the back of the unit.

File:SuperDisk_Mac_-_USB_to_IDE_adapter

Not sure about the newer models, but the original was just a ide drive in an enclosure with a power adapter board that converts the IDE port on the internal drive to a proprietary jack that the "cable" plugs into. The cable you plug into the back houses the IDE to USB conversion logic.

You can take the entire drive out and plug it into the IDE port on your motherboard and use a standard floppy power connector from your PSU. if the drive works, it's either you're usb adapter cord or your power adapter.

I had the crazy idea of getting a cheap unit off ebay that doesn't include the power adapter and cable and sorta hacking it into a internal drive. It would be nice to have the novelty of internal floppy on my PC that has that fancy self eject mechanism that vintage macs had.

I'm sure there's proper internal drives with a faceplate designed for it on eBay, but they are probably more expensive to get a hold of.

If the drive has gone bad don't toss it. You can see if the internals can be useful for converting other IDE drives to USB. That depends on how the USB to IDE adapter is programmed though. It may only work with that specific drive.