Floppy not responding...

mrdalliard · Post by **mrdalliard** » Sun May 13, 2012 10:09 am

I've seen a good few posts about this, but I think my 520STFM drive seems to be different than most, hence why I'm posting.

I'm getting the standard "drive is not responding" problem. I can hear the "clunk" of the heads moving (that seems to work) and I know the sleep of the disk is being retracted, but the motor doesn't seem to actually spin the disk. (It's silent, bar the "clunk"). The drive light comes on.

The drive is an Epson one, but not the model that's in most STs by the look of it. It's not belt-driven. I think it might be electromagnetically-driven. I stripped down the drive and got rid of the years of dust, although that doesn't appear to have helped.

Any ideas on how to get it to spin again? Or am I just going to have to bite the bullet and replace the drive? I was hoping not to have to cut bits off my case to get a new drive to fit...

Thanks,

M.

ralcool · Post by **ralcool** » Mon May 14, 2012 12:41 pm

To help a bit.. um here's a quick picture of a pair of my dirty old cases. One Original, the other modified to fit an off the shelf PC floppy drive. The face of which will sit just behind the Atari case. Clean and neat.

IMG_1539s.jpg

I'll have to do a shot of the lid fitted over the drive to show it.

My little thread has a page on drive mods to make them work. http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.ph ... &start=375 .. excellent contributions from Mark/1024MAK too.

A hacksaw and a file in this example. Go slow. As much as we all may love and unicorns our original STs.. stuff gets old. Just be neat.

I honestly have given up on perfection when it comes to something being usable. Life is too short.

Unless you can demagnetize heads, find a original alignment disk for tuning the head position and the software... Anyone should consider just putting in a modern drive. Seriously.

My opinion is worth only the few billion electrons that were inconvenienced to suggest this.

ST.

DarkLord · Post by **DarkLord** » Mon May 14, 2012 5:58 pm

I used a hacksaw (one of those short handled ones, that leaves just the blade sticking
out the end), then a dremel for the finer work, and finally some sandpaper to smooth
it out.

After that, because I didn't like the uneven opening, I did this:

PC300001.JPG

PC300004.JPG

PC300006.JPG

I've still got to smooth and even it out just a bit more before painting, but I'm
fairly happy with the results.

HTHs.

mrdalliard · Post by **mrdalliard** » Wed May 16, 2012 9:25 pm

Well, I ordered a replacement floppy drive today and fitted it. I'm glad to say that it's worked a charm. Got up and running and loaded Dungeon Master as one of my first tests.... All is good. The picture quality isn't amazing, but that's another matter...

I've got 300 disks of software for the old thing, with lots of gems on there, including a demo I wrote in STOS but never quite got around to releasing... but that's another matter.

Screenshot of the all-time favourite attached for posterity.

jvidia · Post by **jvidia** » Wed May 16, 2012 10:06 pm

did you ordered an original one or a PC adapted one?

mrdalliard · Post by **mrdalliard** » Thu May 17, 2012 7:05 am

It's a PC adapted one, courtesy of STFreakz.

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