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Toshiba T3200 floppy drive problems

kerr said:
Hey @shawnerz that's a great find 🤓 it could potentially help fix all the other busted floppy drives from the T3200/SX/T5200 era - a real plague of failed FDDs.

Do you know the model of your drive? And what cap numbers (on the board) were they?

For example, I'm aware of 2 types of FDD in the T5200, a Toshiba ND-356S-A and a Citizen 0SDA-32C.

Cheers!
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I'm so sorry I didn't see this earlier! I would have responded.
Keep in mind that I have the T3200, so my drives will be different.
I had 3 drives. I threw away the one I damaged beyond repair. Of the two, one is a ND-352S, and the other is a ND-356S-A. The ND-352S sometimes will read a disk correctly. It seems short reads are OK. But if you try to execute anything from disk, where there are sustained reads, it will fail.
I do not have a fix for this yet. I cam here to ask @Conventional Memories if he had a suggestion.
I hope that helps.
 
Conventional Memories said:
You should take a look at the electrolytic caps on the bottom of the fdd. I've found these can sometimes go bad in many of the toshiba t series. They don't always leak but replacing them has repaired a couple of them (including in T3200's)
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Do you happen to remember which capacitors you replaced to repair your floppy drives? I am trying to repair a drive that is failing.
Thank you.
 
shawnerz said:
Do you happen to remember which capacitors you replaced to repair your floppy drives? I am trying to repair a drive that is failing.
Thank you.
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Unfortunately I' don't remember the values. But It's the surface mount electrolytic caps on the bottom of the drives that go bad, and sometimes leak as well so I usually replace these even if the drives are working to prevent them from destroying the PCB.
You don't have to disassemble the drive to replace them from the bottom.
 
Here's some good news: if you can't repair the floppy drive for one of these systems, there's an adapter that pops up on eBay once in a while:
www.ebay.com

34pin FDD Floppy Interface to 26pin Male Header IDC PCB emulator Converter Board | eBay

1 X PCB Converter Board. 1 X power cable. We want you to be happy with our products.And your satisfactory is very important to us.
www.ebay.com

What you need for this is to tie the "DRV READY" and "MEDIA/DRV SIZE" pins to GND on the floppy side of the adapter, and then crimp a 26-pin ribbon cable. It works with any 1.44MB floppy drive and requires no change on the drive itself.

Really, all those Toshiba clamshell 3.5" floppy drives really do is reduce the amount of ground pins by 8.
 
Wow! hat looks great. I will buy a few! It looks like the connector from the Toshiba drive controller is not keyed. It also looks like the connector on the converter board is not keyed either. So, I guess I have a 50/50 chance of getting it right.
I will let you know how things go.
Thanks again for the link to the adapter board!
 
shawnerz said:
Wow! hat looks great. I will buy a few! It looks like the connector from the Toshiba drive controller is not keyed. It also looks like the connector on the converter board is not keyed either. So, I guess I have a 50/50 chance of getting it right.
Click to expand...
Also, all you need to worry about is matching pin 1 on both of the plastic crimp housings (an arrow) with wire 1 on the ribbon cable (red wire). That's easy.

If you do that correctly, all you need to do is have the housing arrows on the same side as pin 1 on the converter board, and on the Toshiba's motherboard.
 
T-Squared said:
Here's some good news: if you can't repair the floppy drive for one of these systems, there's an adapter that pops up on eBay once in a while:
www.ebay.com

34pin FDD Floppy Interface to 26pin Male Header IDC PCB emulator Converter Board | eBay

1 X PCB Converter Board. 1 X power cable. We want you to be happy with our products.And your satisfactory is very important to us.
www.ebay.com

What you need for this is to tie the "DRV READY" and "MEDIA/DRV SIZE" pins to GND on the floppy side of the adapter, and then crimp a 26-pin ribbon cable. It works with any 1.44MB floppy drive and requires no change on the drive itself.

Really, all those Toshiba clamshell 3.5" floppy drives really do is reduce the amount of ground pins by 8.
Click to expand...
I forgot to circle back. DO NOT use these devices. The pinouts are incorrect for a Toshiba laptop. If this interface board is used, you will turn on the power supply and the long trace connecting pin 4 will smoke and burn off the board. My guess is +5V is getting shorted to ground. Do not use.
 
T-Squared said:
Also, all you need to worry about is matching pin 1 on both of the plastic crimp housings (an arrow) with wire 1 on the ribbon cable (red wire). That's easy.

If you do that correctly, all you need to do is have the housing arrows on the same side as pin 1 on the converter board, and on the Toshiba's motherboard.
Click to expand...
I made sure pin 1 matched up. Burned the trace off the board.
 
Strange. Mine worked just fine for me when I got it.

I am extremely sorry for your system, though. That was not my intention.
 
T-Squared said:
Strange. Mine worked just fine for me when I got it.

I am extremely sorry for your system, though. That was not my intention.
Click to expand...
I understand. Things happen. The laptop and power supply are fine. I don't know how many amps the +5 supply is rated at. But it burned the trace until it separated and continued to supply power to the other components and complete the boot sequence.
I since have bought to T3100's from eBay and I now use those floppy drives in my T3200's. It's good to go now. :)
 
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