[SOLVED] 5.25" Floppy Drive Head Not Moving.

[dogester366]

I've tried asking people and no one seems to know the issue so I wanted to post it here. I have a Compaq Portable 1 that has two 5.25" 360KB floppy drives. I was restoring the Compaq and I ran into a problem. I kept getting an error 601 (Floppy Drive Error). At first I thought it was a drive controller issue, but that isn't the case. I plugged the floppy drives into my other computer that runs Windows 98 SE and set up the drives in the BIOS. For some reason, when I plug in the floppy drives with a cable that wasn't from the Compaq portable, the drive lights stay on continuously. When I use the original cable from the Compaq Portable, The drive lights flicker at startup and then function how they are supposed to. My issue is that both floppy drive heads aren't moving. The heads move about a millimeter at startup and then don't move at all any other time. Although it can't be an issue with the drive rails not having enough lube/it dried up because the read and write head moves great and with little force. When I put in a disk, the motor that spins the disk slows down to a stop. When I try accessing the disk, no activity light shows up and the computer freezes for about 30 seconds and then says that the drive is not ready. The drive spins the disk fine when I try accessing it though. I would think that the stepper motor bearings are bad or the motor itself is bad, but I think that would be weird to have both drives with a dead stepper motor. Trying to unstick the motor or moving it by hand does nothing. It isn't really making any sounds other than the disk spinning in the sleeve when I put a disk in and a click when the head moves a tiny bit. I really don't understand the issue here. If it helps, I have the last revision of the Compaq Portable 1 that was made in 1986. The floppy drives are half height themselves, but the front that has the lever on it is full height. Picture of them is below
Imgur link to floppy drive pic

 

[USAFRet]

A 30 year old drive not being functional is not to be unexpected.

 

[dogester366]

A 30 year old drive not being functional is not to be unexpected.

I know that. That's why I'm trying to track down the problem so I can fix it.

 

[jsmithepa]

If u have not backed up your floppies data, it maybe too late. Nobody fixes these dinosaurs and even if u find another one, that baby maybe equally dried-greased-frozen in its track.

 

[drea.drechsler]

I know that. That's why I'm trying to track down the problem so I can fix it.

You're probably better off looking for a vintage computer forum.

http://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/r_restore.html

for instance

 

[dogester366]

You're probably better off looking for a vintage computer forum.

http://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/r_restore.html

for instance

Ok, thanks. I'll try that

 

[dogester366]

If u have not backed up your floppies data, it maybe too late. Nobody fixes these dinosaurs and even if u find another one, that baby maybe equally dried-greased-frozen in its track.

I don't have any floppies with data on them. I need to write data on disks though.

 

[AllanGH]

https://www.ebay.com/i/112876883241

 

[USAFRet]

Unless you are into the hobby realm of "repair"....just replace these drives.

 

[jsmithepa]

https://www.ebay.com/i/112876883241

• No returns, but backed by eBay Money back guarantee
Last time used (4 years ago) was working just fine. Unsure of current functional status. Comes with one floppy disk

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Your description is exactly that of lubrication of the moving parts having dried out and now everything is binding up. As a temp measure, a little penetrating oil on all slides and bushings should loosen things up enough to be able to tell if the drives are still functional. And, the access lights being on full time means that you have the cable on backward at either the drive or controller. Red stripe faces pin 1.

 

[dogester366]

Your description is exactly that of lubrication of the moving parts having dried out and now everything is binding up. As a temp measure, a little penetrating oil on all slides and bushings should loosen things up enough to be able to tell if the drives are still functional. And, the access lights being on full time means that you have the cable on backward at either the drive or controller. Red stripe faces pin 1.

I wouldn't understand why that is happening since the head moves fine on the rails. Should I try putting motor oil in the stepper motor too along with the rails? (After I clean the rails off obviously)

 

[dogester366]

Unless you are into the hobby realm of "repair"....just replace these drives.

I'm trying to do everything I can to try and restore this back to its original condition. I've already repaired the motherboard and the graphics card of the Compaq. Plus, buying more drives would end up costing me more than what I paid for the computer

 

[ex_bubblehead]

I wouldn't understand why that is happening since the head moves fine on the rails. Should I try putting motor oil in the stepper motor too along with the rails? (After I clean the rails off obviously)

The head rails should have a very, very light coating of grease, no oil there (I've used a product called Plasguard for this for the last 15 or so years). If the head is moved by a spinning shaft with a spiral track cut in it then it needs to be cleaned and lightly greased as well. You will also have to remove the bushing that rides the groove and clean it as well. The bushings on both the head stepper motor and the spindle motor should get 1 drop only of penetrating oil (I use 3-in-one for this). Moving things by hand is FAR different than letting the motors and actuators do it.

 

[dogester366]

The head rails should have a very, very light coating of grease, no oil there (I've used a product called Plasguard for this for the last 15 or so years). If the head is moved by a spinning shaft with a spiral track cut in it then it needs to be cleaned and lightly greased as well. You will also have to remove the bushing that rides the groove and clean it as well. The bushings on both the head stepper motor and the spindle motor should get 1 drop only of penetrating oil (I use 3-in-one for this). Moving things by hand is FAR different than letting the motors and actuators do it.

The stepper motor moves the head with a tape thing. I don't know what to call it, but I figured a picture would probably help a lot more than me trying to explain it.

https://imgur.com/a/YswshGp

View: https://imgur.com/a/YswshGp

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Oh lord! I haven't seen one of those beasts in years!

In no particular order:

There may be a failure of the motor driver circuit/s on the controller board. Unless severely over voltaged, the stepper motors themselves rarely, if ever, fail.

The Track 0 sensors tended to fail (the embedded LED failed). With the LED not lit, the drive thinks the head is already at track 0 and only "bumps" the motor to verify. If that fails to detect the head moving then the drive issues an error and shuts down. Common failure, so it wouldn't be unusual for both drives to have the same problem.



And an aside. Once you get the drives working (assuming that you do), make sure that you have the proper media. The more common High Density (1.2MB) media will not work at all in these drives. You must use the older, and much harder to find, Double Density media.

 

[dogester366]

Oh lord! I haven't seen one of those beasts in years!

In no particular order:

There may be a failure of the motor driver circuit/s on the controller board. Unless severely over voltaged, the stepper motors themselves rarely, if ever, fail.

The Track 0 sensors tended to fail (the embedded LED failed). With the LED not lit, the drive thinks the head is already at track 0 and only "bumps" the motor to verify. If that fails to detect the head moving then the drive issues an error and shuts down. Common failure, so it wouldn't be unusual for both drives to have the same problem.



And an aside. Once you get the drives working (assuming that you do), make sure that you have the proper media. The more common High Density (1.2MB) media will not work at all in these drives. You must use the older, and much harder to find, Double Density media.

Is there a way that I can check to see if the sensors have failed?

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Is there a way that I can check to see if the sensors have failed?

Got an Oscope? You'll have to use one to read the output of the photosensor when the beam is broken.

 

[dogester366]

Got an Oscope? You'll have to use one to read the output of the photosensor when the beam is broken.

No, I don't have one

 

[dogester366]

The head rails should have a very, very light coating of grease, no oil there (I've used a product called Plasguard for this for the last 15 or so years). If the head is moved by a spinning shaft with a spiral track cut in it then it needs to be cleaned and lightly greased as well. You will also have to remove the bushing that rides the groove and clean it as well. The bushings on both the head stepper motor and the spindle motor should get 1 drop only of penetrating oil (I use 3-in-one for this). Moving things by hand is FAR different than letting the motors and actuators do it.

I put a little bit of multi-purpose grease on the rails after I cleaned them off and also put a little bit of penetrating oil in the stepper motor and it still does the same thing.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Then you're likely looking at a failure either on the controller, or failed track 0 sensors. Not worth trying to repair it at this point. Your best bet is to find a working drive/s on E-Bay or similar.