Need 5.25 floppy buying recommendations ...

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Last seen: 11 years 2 weeks ago
Joined: Feb 1 2009 - 14:44
Posts: 48
Need 5.25 floppy buying recommendations ...

I purchased some Platinum 2S/DD 5.25 disks recently and they don't work very well with the drives. They work about 85% of the time but I get far more I/O errors from them than with my 25 yr old 3M 5.25" disks. Drive 2 can't initialize these disks either, but drive 1 can usually.

Does anyone have any recommendations on what kind of 5.25" floppies to buy for an Apple IIe and where to buy them?

-thanks

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Last seen: 8 months 3 weeks ago
Joined: Dec 19 2003 - 18:53
Posts: 906
Disk maintenance and a special application

Those disks might be fine. A couple of suggestions before you buy more disks.

The fact that you are having more success with one drive over the other is a strong indicator that the heads are dirty, or the disk speed is out of range. I know that these are usual things to try but they are worth repeating. First, clean the disk read/write head. Then adjust the disk motor speed to optimal range. Then try the new disks.

Additionally, most disks were made and formated for PC's. Sometimes this pre-existing formatting can interfere with the formatting process for the Apple II DOS or ProDOS. A solution I found was to wipe out the formatting by rubbing a magnet on the disk jacket (NOT the shiny part of the disk).

If none of this helps, do you have a source for blank diskettes? If not, let me know, as I have stock piled too many.

Mutant_Pie

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Last seen: 11 years 2 weeks ago
Joined: Feb 1 2009 - 14:44
Posts: 48
Adjusting disk drive speed ...

I opened the case and gave the head on the second drive the spit shine cleaning. It was already very clean though. Do you have any links to instructions for checking and adjusting the speed? I found this one for speed and track adjustments: http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/Csa2FDRIVE.html#003

The second drive does have a slightly different sound than the first drive when reading and writing, does that indicate anything?

Lastly, I suspected it was the disks because 3 of them out of the first box of 10 will not initialize in either drive. The disk box says they are compatible with all 48 track systems if that makes any difference. The disks that did format successfully and now have data saved on them often give I/O errors in either drive and need to be pulled out and re-inserted once or twice to begin working. The old 3M disks never do this.

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