Hello all,

Floppy drive problems seem to have a number of causes, but most of them
can be cured by replacing the drive. It always makes me cringe inside to
throw out anything, much less a computer part that works "most of the
time," but floppy drives are a special problem in this sense because
trying to home repair them is usually unsuccessful and having them
repaired by a professional is not financially feasible. The only thing I
have successfully done with them is to blow or vacuum the dust out of
them. Long ago while they were still relatively expensive, I sent one
back to the manufacturer, paid almost 75%  of the new price to have the
"heads realigned" which took nearly 3 months. After reinstalling, the
drive worked for about 4 weeks and then started failing again.

My advice therefore would be to "bite the bullet" and  buy a new drive.
I have had extremely good luck with TEAC floppy drives. All other brands
seem to vary highly in reliability, some failing after less than a year
of use. I have yet to have a TEAC fail and I have 37 of them in use.

I would be delighted if someone has a (realistic) alternative.

Best wishes,

Bruce

In <005701bd539a$daa41fa0$381599ce@d6x5j4wl>, on 03/19/98
   at 07:53 PM, "Stephen J. Link" <[log in to unmask]> said:

>>I have developed a little problem and I was hoping that you could help me
>>with it......From time to time, when I insert a 1.44 floppy in the drive to
>>either read or write (to or from the disk), it gives me this message:"The
>>disk in drive A is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?" This
>>happens on known formatted disks. I have also discovered that if I turn the
>>disk (from the bottom side) just a hair, it then recognizes it as being
>>formatted. Could it be that my drive head is slighty mis-aligned???? Or am


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        Bruce Boschek - Haus Christiansruh - Nidda, Germany
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