Possible Write head issue, 1000EX?

[John Riordan]

Hi All,
I recently purchased my first computer. Tandy 1000EX and it works great with one exception.. When I try to format a 5.25 floppy to use to copy some of the software I have I continue to get an error. Was wondering if maybe the write head is not doing well, or needs to be cleaned. I have no issues when I format and write to my 3.5 external.
Any thoughts?
Thank you all!
John

[Walt Perko]

Hi,

I don't know if FDD heads need cleaning or not, but a piece of paper or card stock soaked with alcohol on it cut so there are two handles coming out of the front of the drive on each side of the door lock, then shut the door and just slide the paper around should help to clean the heads.

.

[Black Epyon]

Take the drive apart. Clean the heads and rails with alcohol soaked Q-tips, then apply some lithium grease to the rails (make sure not to get any on the heads). Even just cleaning gunk off the rails with alcohol will allow them to slide more freely, and may improve the error rate. After 35-40 years, all these 5.25" drives need to be cleaned out and lubed. That's just to eliminate the obvious.

Can we assume that you're using 360K disks and not 1.2MB, and that you've verified the disk is good on the other machine you're copying software from? I've been doing the same with a PC-Jr I recently acquired. I thought at first it was the drive that was the issue, only to discover that the drive itself is good, and half of all my disks are bad.

Also, make sure the drive that came with your EX is actually a 360K drive, and not 1.2MB. You can use a 1.44MB drive in lieu of a 720K (one of the drives on my HX is actually a 1.44MB, even though the machine can only recognize it as 720K), but a 1.2MB drive can NOT be used on that controller.

I'm jealous that you have an external Tandy floppy though. Those are hard to come by these days.

---Kyle

[Black Epyon]

Also: If you're taking the drive apart to clean it, be careful not to remove the heads. Those are a PITA to realign. There might be a shroud over top of the heads that you'll need to remove, but you should be able to reach everything you need to with Q-tips, and that's easier than disassembling the entire drive.

[John Riordan]

Thanks All for your input. I do have 360k disks but have only tried a couple. The 5.25 internal drive is the original tandy drive. My 3.5 external Tandy drive will Read Write and have had no issues with format. I will keep trying the all my 5.25 disks before I take apart the drive.

Thanks again all!
John