11 May
2014
11 May
'14
3:27 a.m.
Date: Sat, 10 May 2014 10:36:57 -0700
From: cclist at sydex.com
To:
Subject: Re: Restoring old floppy drives!?
On 05/10/2014 10:14 AM, Fred Cisin wrote:
What stopped me behind the starting line on this discussion is what was
meant by "old". It seems that almost everything I have is considered
"old" by someone--even the PC I'm typing this on.
So, does the OP mean 8, 5.25, 4.0 or 3.25, 3.0, 2.8 or 2.5 inch drives?
48, 96, 100 or something else tracks per inch?
If it's 8", there are some pretty good maintenance manuals out there
that should be the definitive references for their drives.
If you're looking for an exerciser on a PC, Dave Dunfield's ImageDisk
has some very useful functionality. If you're looking for an alignment
kit, you can still buy them from Accurite, the last time I checked--they
also sell plain old analog alignment disks. Have cash ready.
--Chuck
Hey thanks guys! It was just a general question from me, meaning all floppy drives( but
especially 8" and 5.25")!I have 8 ", 5.25", 3.5 "and 3" in
my machines! Useful links with lots of info, thanks;
http://www.accurite.com/FloppyPrimer.html http://web.ncf.ca/dunfield/dsktools.htm
http://ray-tapajna-info.net/collect-vintage-computer-products/id6.html
Regards Kenny
I was a
bit too fast there, I meant "universal tester"! The one I think
I saw on ebay was in a small suitcase, maybe it was able to test hard
drives too! Can't remember any brand or so!
What you saw was probably a drive Exerciser (ExOrcisor?)
Those are devices that emulate a computer, in terms of being able to
start and stop the drive, step, and turn on and off the read and write
lines.
It's a handy tool, but in most cases, you can accomplish the same things
using a PC (which is a lot cheaper) and SOFTWARE.