Floppy Drive Issues

[jraclarke]

Hi all,

I was backing up some of my old floppies yesterday. Initially managed to load Xcopy fine, but for some reason the floppy drive (df0; Epson SMD 300) stopped working and wouldn't read anything after I put another disk in.

I tried cleaning the head on it, but no luck there. it's actually quite difficult to get the thing open. I did think that it could be one of the chips failing - I tried replacement CIAs x 2 and Paula (not Gary though as I don't have a spare - I replaced 12 months ago), though still the same behaviour.

I popped the Gotek on as df0 and this works fine - though I don't want this to be a permanent solution as I'm a bit of a purist (it's my original Amiga 500).

Is everything pointing to a faulty drive? And does anyone know if there's anyway of confirming this before I fork out for another? Could it still be another failed Gary chip (would that affect the Gotek?)?

Any advice appreciated,

James

[ptyerman]

No doubt someone else will be along to explain better, as I'm crap at explaining things.
But, two things common on floppy drives that fail are the big capacitor on the motor PCB, and sticking disk detect switches. If you're handy and careful enough with a soldering iron, change the capacitor and try it then.
First thing to try though is clean the disk detect switch and make sure it's working, if the switch is intermittent it may not be detecting a disk in the drive. The switch is located at the bottom of the drive, just behind the disk slot.