On 12 Jun 01 at 21:43, Howard Schwartz wrote:
>>I have software tools laying around that claim to adjust various
>>floppy drive parameters. But I wonder if anyone knows how one goes
>>about aligning what I assume is the magnetic read head of a floppy
>>drive?
I have aligned a couple of my old Commodore 1541 5 1/4" floppy
drives, but that was a long time ago in another life. ;) I've got an
old (read dead) NEC 3 1/2" floppy here in front of me, and looking at
the back of the drive, there are 2 screws holding the small stepper
motor in place. If you loosen these screws it should be a matter of
simply rotating the stepper motor assembly in one or the other
direction slightly, and then secure the screws. Then, run the software
to measure the effect. It would probably bee a good idea to make some
marks to indicate the original alignment before you begin so that if
you make things worse you can return to the original position. In my
Commodore days we'd use a commercial software disk (without any copy
protection) as our alignment disk and it worked pretty well. The
higher density of the track spacing (80 tracks) will probably make
this a more tedious task than on a 5 1/4" disk with only 35 tracks.
>>By analogy this is one of the larger problems of keeping good but
>>old autoreverse audio cassette tapes going (I suppose VCRs too).
>>My local electronics store tells me they can order an alignment tape
>>with a pure high frequency tone on it. Then I turn the screw until
>>I max the tone on my equalizer.
>>
>>What would the analogy for a floppy disk driver be, when you can get
>>a new one for about $15. ?
When you can buy a new drive for $15, it's probably more of an
intellectual excercise to try and repair one, but if you've more time
than money, it might be worth it.
Regards,
Dale Mentzer
I'm just working here till a good fast-food job opens up.
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