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Shugart SA 400 Minifloppy Read/Write Head?

A

atod

Experienced Member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Messages
303
Location
New York, NY
Hi,

I'm trying to resurrect a N* Horizon. One floppy drive has low read signal and can't read disks.

Does anyone have or know where to find a head?

Thanks
 
Ok, I have been told it's not worth replacing the RW head. Doing this would require the drive go through the re-alignment process which is not very easy to do.

Does anyone have either a replacement SA 400 or pair of SSDD/DSDD 5.25" Full Height floppies they are willing to sell? The drives on Ebay are ridiculously priced. A pair of 5.25" would cost me around $300!

Thanks
 
Make sure that you get 48 tpi drives--96 and 100 tpi full-height 5.25' drives also populate the existing stock.

There should still be a fair number of Tandon TM100-2 drives kicking around... Even if you find one with a broken latch mechanism (very common), they're relatively easy to repair.
 
Someone is sending me a TM100, which I'm happy to receive, however not sure if it will look identical next to my working SA400 in the Horizon chassis. I think a fair price for a single SA400 is about $50 right? What do you think?
 
Well as long as the TM100 doesn't have the "IBM" logo shoud be fine. I have 3 floppies for my TRS-80. 2 are SA400's and one is a TM100. You cannot tell the difference from the outside. But I will say that the TM100 is noticeably heavier. Better Built? But IMHO $50.00 is a liitle much for a SA400.
 
Great! I'll compare when the TM100 arrives and let folks know. It would be nice having the same identical drive because it would be easy to debug problems. Looks like I'll wait until I find another modestly priced TM100 or SA400.

By the way, someone mentioned there were even DS FH 5.25" drives manufactured. I haven't seen these. Does anyone know the models?
 
Chromedome45 said:
... And thos are what I can think off the top of my head I'm sure there were a few others.
Click to expand...
Indeed:

360K Alps 2124A
360K CDC 9409
360K I.B.M. 0384-002
360K Micropolis 1016-2
360K M.P.I. 52M
360K M.P.I. 52S
360K M.P.I. B52S
360K Pertec FD250
360K Qume 542
360K Qume DT/5
360K Shugart SA450
360K Siemens FDD221-5
360K Tandon TM100-2A
360K Tandon TM101-2
360K World Storage FD200-5
720K CDC 9409T
720K Hi-Tech 596-10
720K Micropolis 1006-4N
720K Micropolis 1015-4
720K Micropolis 1015-6
720K Micropolis 1115-4
720K Micropolis 1115-6
720K Micropolis 1117-6
720K M.P.I. 92M-002
720K M.P.I. B102M-S
720K M.P.I. B92M
720K M.P.I. B92S
720K Shugart SA460
720K Tandon TM100-4
720K Tandon TM100-4A
720K Tandon TM101-4
720K Toshiba 0202A
720K Victor TM100-4-VIC
720K YE Data YD280
 
Well, Mike beat me to it (it seems we get our information from the same place).

Also note that positioning times can vary widely--in particular, the Micropolis drives use a leadscrew positioner that's rather slow.
 
Last edited:
Chuck(G) said:
Well, Mike beat me to it (it seems we get our information from the same place).
Click to expand...
Probably; mine's from Farris, but looks like yours is^H^H was a little more complete.

Gee, I was just going to comment on your caution that some 360K drives are SSQD and not DSDD but it looks like you edited it out. True enough though; the following drives are 360K but SSQD, i.e. not compatible with the much more common DSDD drives:

DEC RX50-AA
M.P.I. 91M
M.P.I. B101M-S
M.P.I. B91S
Tandon TM100-3
Tandon TM100-3M
Tandon TM101-3
Victor TM100-3-VIC

Of course I can't vouch for all these specs personally, but they do seem fairly accurate and complete; YMMV.
 
Thanks. I searched this list and couldn't find any DSDD FH drives on Ebay. I'll keep my eyes open. For now, I'll just load the N* up with SSDD.
 
Thanks. I did end up getting the SA400 to work tonight. I hooked it up to my IMD PC and tried moving the head track by track. It was stuck. I moved it by hand to back and forth, then to track 0. The drive head correctly moved across tracks after that. I was able to switch it into my N* system, boot N* CP/M, copy from Drive 1 to 2 successfully! Not sure why the head got stuck. I could see the stepper circular black oval move, but the head didn't go anywhere.

I'll check out the DSDD FH drives though. I guess that would make it a souped up N* system. Has anyone run into a system with a 10MB FH hard disk + S100 controller? I think they added those in the later years.
 
There is a IBM 5150 available locally with drives. Im thinking of checking if the drives are DSDD. Does anyone know the model # to look for? Thanks
 
Read / Write Heads for Shugart SA400 and other parts for Floppy Drives

Read / Write Heads for Shugart SA400 and other parts for Floppy Drives

atod said:
Hi,

I'm trying to resurrect a N* Horizon. One floppy drive has low read signal and can't read disks.

Does anyone have or know where to find a head?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Hello:

We have lots of parts for Shugart SA400 Drives as well as complete units and partially complete units of not only Shugart SA400 but also Shugart SA460 and Tandon 100-4 and also some CDC ( Control Data ) Floppy Drives.

Send us an email with your request at
vintage@computerhospital.com
We will get back to you with a price for parts and shipping.

Thanks,

SF
 
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