Floppy drive is a litte "sticky"

[habibrobert]

Hello,

I was wondering what would most likely be the cause of a "sticky" floppy drive? By that I mean, having to pull the disk out by force after the floppy drive ejects the disk.

Do you think it has to do with the "metal slider" on the floppy disk coming loose and grabbing on to something in the floppy drive? Or is the issue with the floppy drive its self? If so, what could be going wrong, and could it be fixed?

Many Thanks.

Habib

 

[RWallmow]

Hello,

I was wondering what would most likely be the cause of a "sticky" floppy drive?

Dried grease.

There are drive repair guides all over the net, I would strip it down, clean off all old grease and use some new silicon or lithium grease, will probably give you another 25 years out of the drive. Remember WD40 is great for cleaning up old dried grease, but it is NOT a proper lubricant for the drive.

EDIT: *IMPORTANT* NEVER, I repeat, NEVER, pull up on the top read/write head, its next to impossible to repair the spring if you pull up and stretch it.

 

[Juror22]

I agree with RWallmow - I have rehabilitated several sticky drives by cleaning (carefully) and re-greasing them.
Search for this - floppy grease wiki. For me it yields a wiki entry (Floppy_drive_lubrication) that I have used. There are others, but if your drive matches, this one is pretty good.

Good luck, and be careful.