On Sun, 6 Jan 2013, Win Heagy wrote: Almost all the A3 drives that have come my way were malfunctioning. Best bet is to disassemble them and carefully clean and lube. First, use some canned air to blow out all the dust bunnies. The original grease used on the head assembly rails and the spiral-cut plastic stepper wheel solidifies over the years. I usually use a tiny bit of WD-40 on a swab to remove the old lubricant, then a bit of Tri-Flow to replace it. A speed adjustment may very well be needed, but another problem area is the two trimpots on the top of the drive circuit board. They tend to grow oxide and become intermittant. Mark the position of the pots with a felt-tipped pen, then wiggle them with a screwdriver until the little gob of locking compound breaks. Squirt a small amount of non-residue control cleaner in the side and work them through their rotation a few times. Reset to the marked position. You can lock them in place again with a dab of nail polish, but don't do this until you know that things are working again! Reseat all the chips on the board and check closely for "black pin" syndrome. For some reason, the chips in the disk drives seem more prone to this (more exposure to humidity?) If you see this, pull all of them and take a contact cleaning tool to the legs. Finally, take a swab and carefully clean the head with isopropyl alcohol. I've successfully repaired four or five drives in this manner. Steve --