I have a curious problem with an Epson SD800 floppy drive. It's a half height combo drive with a 3.25inch floppy drive (mapped to A in the BIOS and set up as 1.44MB) which appears to be fully working (which is to say, whilst I haven't tried formatting any disks in it I was able to install MS-DOS 6 from the original disks using it).
There's also a 5.25inch drive (mapped to B in the BIOS and set up as 1.2MB) which appears less happy. Virtually none of my disks work in it, whether pre-written (I tested some original HP software disks in it) or blank, and formatting immediately fails on the first track. I'd say that the drive is totally dead - except that I have one disk, a cover disk from a magazine, that it's happy to read every time and I've been able to copy its contents to the hard disk with no errors. Which is weird.
I've tried gently cleaning the heads with a cotton bud and some IPA.
So is it the disks? Maybe. I bought them on eBay - so they could be rubbish. I think it would be a bit of a stretch though since even today I'd expect one of the 10 to work. Furthermore, whilst I don't have any other PC 5.25 inch drive I can test the disks in, I do have an Apple IIe. The Apple formats all the disks I've tried happily and is able to use them without issue (although it's an unfair test, given the cruder format of the Apple). None of the disks show mould spots, streaking, scratches or other damage.
Does anyone have any thoughts about this? What would you try next?
There's also a 5.25inch drive (mapped to B in the BIOS and set up as 1.2MB) which appears less happy. Virtually none of my disks work in it, whether pre-written (I tested some original HP software disks in it) or blank, and formatting immediately fails on the first track. I'd say that the drive is totally dead - except that I have one disk, a cover disk from a magazine, that it's happy to read every time and I've been able to copy its contents to the hard disk with no errors. Which is weird.
I've tried gently cleaning the heads with a cotton bud and some IPA.
So is it the disks? Maybe. I bought them on eBay - so they could be rubbish. I think it would be a bit of a stretch though since even today I'd expect one of the 10 to work. Furthermore, whilst I don't have any other PC 5.25 inch drive I can test the disks in, I do have an Apple IIe. The Apple formats all the disks I've tried happily and is able to use them without issue (although it's an unfair test, given the cruder format of the Apple). None of the disks show mould spots, streaking, scratches or other damage.
Does anyone have any thoughts about this? What would you try next?
