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3.5" Floppy Drive Read Issues

G

Grandcheapskate

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Hi Guys,
I have a 486 I recently put together and I used a new 3.5" floppy (Inland brand) drive. However, it seems this drive will not cleanly read most disks produced on other floppy drives. It will however format and read it's own disks just fine. If I make a boot disk on another floppy drive, this drive will not read it. If I make one on this drive, it reads it just fine. Even data copied to a floppy on another machine cannot be read on thsi drive, although I may be able to get a directory listing.

I eliminated the controller as being a problem since when I hooked in another floppy drive, I could read any floppy I have.

I'm assuming either the heads are misaligned on this floppy or it has a tight tolerance and can't read most other floppies. Have you run across this before and is there any remedy?

Thanks...Joe
 
How do the disks created with the drive read on other machines? If the answer is "not so hot", then you have an alignment issue.

BTW, when you say "cleanly", I assume that you get some sectors read. (i.e. not "Not at all").
 
Chuck(G) said:
How do the disks created with the drive read on other machines? If the answer is "not so hot", then you have an alignment issue.

BTW, when you say "cleanly", I assume that you get some sectors read. (i.e. not "Not at all").
Click to expand...

Hi Chuck,
When I said cleanly, here's a couple examples.

A DOS boot disk made on another machine will get the message "Non System Disk" when used on the "problem" drive; the disk works on all other machines as far as I know.

A data disk made on another machine (or even the boot disk above) will either be unreadable or be partially readable before you get a message such as "unable to read side x track y". It may or may not allow you to run a DIR /S to completion.

I just tried a boot disk made on the problem floppy in another machine. Most times it gets read fine and will boot the machine. A couple times I got the "Non System Disk" message. I do not seem to have a problem reading the whole disk and DOS SCANDISK finds no errors.

I just tried the "problem drive" boot disk in a third machine with no issues - this machine uses the same brand floppy as the "problem" drive. The floppy drive on this third machine has no problems reading disks made on other machines.

Thanks...Joe
 
The "non-system disk" message gets issued when the boot loader can't read a sector. So no surprises there.

Rather than tinker with the alignment, why not try cleaning the drive heads? If you have a cleaning diskette, the job is really easy. Otherwise, it takes a delicate touch with a swab and some isopropyl alcohol.

Tinkering with the alignment is a very touchy procedure and easy to mess up.
 
Chuck(G) said:
The "non-system disk" message gets issued when the boot loader can't read a sector. So no surprises there.

Rather than tinker with the alignment, why not try cleaning the drive heads? If you have a cleaning diskette, the job is really easy. Otherwise, it takes a delicate touch with a swab and some isopropyl alcohol.

Tinkering with the alignment is a very touchy procedure and easy to mess up.
Click to expand...

I have one of those cleaning kits (liquid and a cloth-type diskette) and ran it through a few times. Maybe I'll run it through a few more. Otherwise, I guess my choices are (a) live with this machine only being able to read it's own disks (b) replace the drive (c) put it into a machine which doesn't need to trade disks with other machines or (d) tinker with the alignment if the drive is no good as it is.

Agreed?

I wonder if using the drive will eventually make it better?

Thanks...Joe
 
One final thing that I'd recommend short of doing a re-alignment. is taking a close look at the leadscrew coming out of the positioner stepper (most 3.5" drives use a leadscrew and not a taut-band-capstan setup like the 5.25" drives) and making sure that it's dirt-free.

Otherwise, the best use of your time would be to replace the drive--they should be common enough at your local computer junk/recycle place.
 
Chuck(G) said:
One final thing that I'd recommend short of doing a re-alignment. is taking a close look at the leadscrew coming out of the positioner stepper (most 3.5" drives use a leadscrew and not a taut-band-capstan setup like the 5.25" drives) and making sure that it's dirt-free.

Otherwise, the best use of your time would be to replace the drive--they should be common enough at your local computer junk/recycle place.
Click to expand...

I too do a DIR A: to clean the drives with the cleaning disk inserted.

If I do tinker with it, it would only be for experiance. I picked up about 14 of these drives at the local Micro Center when they must have been clearing them out (each is individually boxed, they were not just thrown into a huge bin). If I told you how much each cost, you would laugh that I even consider fooling with it.

It just kinda ticks me off that I used a new drive in this machine instead of a used drive so I wouldn't have any issues.

Thanks...Joe
 
I got back to working on that new 3.5" floppy drive that would not read disks made on other machines. I replaced it today with another drive so that machine is now set. The bad drive is now free for me to tinker and/or destroy.

One thing I noticed about both this drive and the replacement drive. The drive seems to be put together by sliipping the top cover over the bottom cover and little tabs "click" into place - it doesn't look like it's going to be real easy to open it up. But that's not the weird thing. It seems there is plastic wrap caught between the upper and lower outer case as if there were a plastic cover over the bottom piece and it wasn't completely removed before the top was snapped into place. I was able to pull out all I saw on the replacement drive but there is still some stuck in the bad drive. It looks like I have to seperate top from bottom before I can get it all out.

Will be interesting to see if the plastic is causing the problem. Must be some very shoddy manufacturing to have the plastic caught in the drive.

Thanks...Joe
 
Agent Orange said:
Don't know, but the aisles at the Micro Centers are chucked full of "Inland" stuff - at least here in greater Detroit area.

View attachment 22712

http://inlandproduct.com/
Click to expand...

As Tom says, the Micro Center here in NJ is also full of Inland products. I have used one of their power supplies in an eMachine and so far so good. But the "trapping" of plastic wrap inside the floppy drive casing has me concerned, especially since I have 11 more of these drives in boxes; although as I said, the price of them (on clearance) was lower than you can imagine.

Joe
 
Hmmm. I ordered some USB floppies from one of Rakuten's vendors (advertised as new) not long ago and found that there was no particular pattern to what you'd find inside. All I could figure was that someone in China had bought up old stock or possibly refurb drives and were shoving them out the door under their own brand.
 
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