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Troubleshoot Osborne 1 A drive?

F

Fire-Flare

Experienced Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2009
Messages
273
Location
Washington State
I have an Osborne 1 that won't boot from the A drive.

I did the 'boot from B drive' trick and it loaded normally, but after reseating the connectors on the A drive it now gives me a 'bad sector' error from the same disk instead of a 'boot error' cascade.

Is there anything I can try to fix the A drive before the boss tells me to put the thing back together and sell it as-is?
 
FWIW, I have lots of floppy drives, some I've had and use regularly for around 25 years and some I only use rarely or occasionaly and I have never had to lubricate the rails on any of them -- not even once.

Now, head cleaning... all the time on drives that I regularly use as less than one second of use with a bad disk can completely foul the heads.
 
Stone said:
FWIW, I have lots of floppy drives, some I've had and use regularly for around 25 years and some I only use rarely or occasionaly and I have never had to lubricate the rails on any of them -- not even once.
Click to expand...
I am unaware of anyone saying that this needs to a periodic maintenance activity. The fact is, we have had posts on these forums from people with faulty 5.25" floppy drives, and sometimes, the cause has turned out to be deteriorated lubrication on the rails (because of non-use?). That is the reason for the suggestion.
 
I had a 1.2mb drive that the heads wouldn't move properly until the rails and worm gear were lubricated. I used a WD-40 brand lithium grease in a spray can. It worked wonderfully.

I clean my floppy drive heads with a Q-tip and Isopropyl alcohol. Never had a cleaning kit.
 
I bought a bunch of NOS 3.5" drives that wouldn't function correctly. Turned out to be dried-out white grease on the leadscrews. Sometimes you do have to clean the things.
 
The cleaning kit arrived and didn't help, nor has a Q-tip with alcohol directly to the head.

I spun the leadscrew by hand and watched it return to its former position when I turned the machine on, so it's probably not a lube issue.

I've attached a picture of the drive's board, perhaps you guys can see a problem that's eluding me?

View attachment 41676
 
Fire-Flare said:
The cleaning kit arrived and didn't help, nor has a Q-tip with alcohol directly to the head.

I spun the leadscrew by hand and watched it return to its former position when I turned the machine on, so it's probably not a lube issue.

I've attached a picture of the drive's board, perhaps you guys can see a problem that's eluding me?

View attachment 41676
Click to expand...

Are those electrolytic capacitors bulging at all? Hard to tell in the pictures.
 
My approach is when the disk spins and nothing else seems to work is to probe the signals going in and coming out of the drive. Since floppy drives are so simple, many faults show up glaringly.
 
Even if that were the case, I wouldn't know where to begin or how to fix it.

It looks to me like the best option is to reassemble the machine and sell it as-is.
 
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