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Gyro
Groupie in Training
Joined: 18 Dec 2008
Posts: 48
Location: Louisville KY : Last Amiga game played : Defender of the Crown
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 Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:15 am Post subject: Amiga 500 internal drive repair help needed |
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Hi once again...
I've decided to give my internal drive a once over since I'm having difficulty finding a replacement. Is there a step by step guide I'm overlooking on how to do this, or can anyone give some advice? Basically the drive is recognized by the Amiga, but every disk is erroring out. The same disk works in an external drive.
Thanks
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Member of Louisville KY area C64/Amiga BBSes
Handle "Gyro" or "Gyromite" 1986-1993
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lifeschool
Grandmaster of Amiga
Joined: 10 May 2009
Age: 37
Posts: 2172
Location: Accrington, Lancs
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| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Sorry pal, sounds like you're trying to refurbish a duff drive. I tried all the head cleaners and found they only make matters worse, so in the end I went for a new drive. They are £10-£14 on ebay. If you fancy trying to remove the external drive it may work internally, but as many externals are modified PC drives or require buffer chips, the chances of this working is very remote. |
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TNT
Über Groupie
Joined: 14 Jul 2004
Posts: 298
Location: Finland
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| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:38 pm Post subject: |
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| If disks fail when reading the very lowest/highest tracks it may be worth the trouble to clean the leadscrew which moves read/write head. They tend to collect lots of dirt and when that accumulates at either end the r/w head doesn't move all the way to the correct track. |
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Gyro
Groupie in Training
Joined: 18 Dec 2008
Posts: 48
Location: Louisville KY : Last Amiga game played : Defender of the Crown
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 2:35 am Post subject: |
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Sounds good. I sure can't break it any more so I'll give it a try. Thanks for the advice.
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Member of Louisville KY area C64/Amiga BBSes
Handle "Gyro" or "Gyromite" 1986-1993
--- 1200 baud rules!!! ---
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Rekrul
Groupie
Joined: 27 Dec 2007
Posts: 164
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 12:36 pm Post subject: |
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Does the drive report errors, or does it suddenly seem to forget that there's a disk in the drive?
The latter is a very common problem with floppy drives and it's caused by the little disk sensor pin in the front, left of the drive opening. There are two little plastic pins sticking up, one gets pushed down by the disk to tell the drive that a disk has been inserted, the other gets pushed down by the write protect tab to enable writing to the disk.
The contacts inside the little base that the pins go into gets dirty and starts making intermittent contact, causing the drive to think that you ejected the disk in the middle of accessing it.
It's possible to take the pin assembly apart and clean the contacts, but typically, the metal piece inside is so tiny that you need a magnifying glass just to see it. A temporary solution is to stuff a rag into the drive and spray the pin assembly with contact cleaner, then work the pins up and down. This seems to work for a little while, but the problem comes back after a while.
Pretty much all floppy drives develop this problem after a while. It's really a shame that they didn't use a more reliable component instead of the tiny little pin switches. |
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thehackercat
Newcomer
Joined: 03 Aug 2012
Posts: 1
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| Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2012 2:14 am Post subject: |
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Topic bump! Sorry about that, but I'm having the exact same problem with my old Amiga 500. I've never serviced a floppy drive before, but Rekrul, I'm considering taking apart and cleaning that pin assembly you talked about.
Have you anything to say before I jump right into this? I'm afraid I'll screw it up.. |
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Rekrul
Groupie
Joined: 27 Dec 2007
Posts: 164
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| Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2012 6:25 am Post subject: |
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| thehackercat wrote: | Topic bump! Sorry about that, but I'm having the exact same problem with my old Amiga 500. I've never serviced a floppy drive before, but Rekrul, I'm considering taking apart and cleaning that pin assembly you talked about.
Have you anything to say before I jump right into this? I'm afraid I'll screw it up.. |
Be careful removing the drive and make notes if necessary, on how everything connects together so that you can put everything back the way it was.
If you just want to spray cleaner in the pin assembly, I'd stuff a paper towel or rag into the drive to keep the spray from going all over. Just make sure not to push it back so far that you end up scratching the heads. Use the little tube that usually comes with such sprays and position the end right where the pin goes into the housing, so that the spray can get down inside. Use short bursts and then gently work the pin(s) up and down with the flat side of a screwdriver. Afterwards, wipe off all the excess spray. Supposedly it leaves no residue, but I always wipe the drive just to be sure.
I can't really recommend taking the pin assembly apart. I did it once and it probably took me at least 30-45 minutes to put it back together, including a good ten minutes search for the contact after I accidentally dropped it. My memory is a little vague now, but as I recall, each pin had a larger, round base with a hollow center and a slot in the side. I think there was a tiny spring in the base to pop it up, and inside the hollow center was a tiny "U" shaped contact that was literally 2-4 MM in size. I believe that there are two tiny contacts inside the base and when the pin is pushed down, the "U" shaped piece slides down over them and makes contact. To get it back together, you have to get the contacts back inside the pins exactly right, put them back in the base, hold them in place and then get the top back on.
Of course, yours might be different. I imagine that you can probably buy the same component from different manufacturers and they probably use minor differences in design. I believe mine had snaps to take the top off, but I'm not really sure.
The spray usually fixes it for a couple/few months and is pretty safe to do. The contact cleaner is made for spraying into electronic parts. It's also good for fixing jittery Atari paddle controllers, scratchy volume knobs (same design as paddles), etc. You can get it under various names. Walmart sells this one, which is a pretty good sized can, for about $5-7;
http://www.walmart.com/ip/CNC-QD-Electronic-Cleaner-11-oz/16817418
Radio Shack sells a similar product, but in a tiny little can for about 2-3 times the price. |
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retrogamer_downunder
Groupie
Joined: 12 May 2010
Posts: 176
Location: australia
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| Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2012 5:27 am Post subject: |
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can of compressed air got 2 of my drives working, the 1 other drive i tried didnt.
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