Floppy drive randomly thinks there is a floppy disk inserted

[Sim085]

I have a TAEC floppy drive like this one:
http://www.nightfallcrew.com/wp-cont...829_185321.jpg

I use it with an A500. It worked like a charm so far. Still does but these last couple of days, it randomly starts to try loading a disk even if not disk is inserted. I have checked the switch in the opening and when it does not exhibit this behavior and I press it I can see it does the same (try to load the disk), once I let it go it stops however - so it does look like the switch is working.

I know these drives need to be re-capped but the thing is that the drive does read and write without any problem. Even when exhibiting this issue, once a disk is inserted it looks to behave as normal. I did try the same drive on a different Amiga and it did act the same way.

Is the switch at the floppy drive opening the only possible culprit of this type of issue? or it could be something else?

[Daedalus]

Yeah, it's most likely the detection switch, they frequently fail. You might be lucky by cleaning it out with some compressed air or some contact cleaner.

[debiani386]

I had a similar issue happen with my A1200, however the switch that sensed the write-protect tab is the one that was broke. Since I always read and write to my floppies, I just bypassed the switch and its been working fine.

For the disk sense switch, have you tried cleaning the switch with contact cleaner?

[Sim085]

Thanks both for the advice. Going to clean the area and see how that goes.