I have three Siemens FDD 100-8D drives that appear to read data only intermittently, and I suspect they need calibration. I have the technical manual for them, but unlike other drives it doesn't mention how to perform maintenance on them. From a manual for a Siemens 5 1/4" drive I read some of their procedures for measuring the amplitude of the magnetic flux off the head circuitry using a test point, pulse index timing, checking that the felt pad is pushing the disk into conformity properly, and that manual very helpfully gave specs for it. For mine, however, all I have is a detailed section on the theory of operation, without any remarks about how the drives often fail and what they need to ensure reliability.
So basically, does anyone have any tips on what I should do with these drives? Is it possible for someone to make an alignment disk that I'd use for checking for head alignment with sectors? I'm driving them with a Jade "Double D" controller card, and though I'm able to boot CP/M (reading from track 0 I think) and read the disk's contents, it almost always fails to load a program.
I'm not opposed to buying already-aligned drives, but no one had any when I asked recently on the marketplace.
So basically, does anyone have any tips on what I should do with these drives? Is it possible for someone to make an alignment disk that I'd use for checking for head alignment with sectors? I'm driving them with a Jade "Double D" controller card, and though I'm able to boot CP/M (reading from track 0 I think) and read the disk's contents, it almost always fails to load a program.
I'm not opposed to buying already-aligned drives, but no one had any when I asked recently on the marketplace.