Re: How do I fix an old 'disk II' 5.25" drive?

[George Rentovich <grent@home.com>]

Hi,
 First turn off power. Now unplug drive take off cover blow out the dust and
cobwebs. Blow it out do not use a vacum. I have heard that a the air moving
across the plastic nozzel creates a large static field.
  Now look at all the chips After 20 some years some of the leggs on the
socketed chips may be turning black. These will cause more resistance and more
power and heat until some fails. These leggs can be cleaned with Tran-X
jewelery
cleaner.
Chips that are sodered have a solid connection if they turn it will not matter.

  If the socketed chips are clean make sure they are all seated.
Next would be to clean the head with a head cleaning disk or Isopropl Alcohol
and some Q-tips just the read write head.

IF the control card has no chipps that have any socketed leggs that  are
turning black.

Are you sure you have a bootable disk ,one that takes only 48k or 64k to boot
up? Did you remove the memory card? Need to put it back. The integer basic card
may cause it to boot with the < prompt rather than the apple soft [ .

Your problem could now be a speed or aglinment problem.

The speed control is a long verticle adjustable resistor or what we call a pot.
These are of the 10 or 15 turn if I am not mistaken.These are located at the
back of the drive are accessable on the side of the drive. Cover must be off.
Speed would be easy to adjust if you had one drive working. Copy II+  and other
software can test the drive.and let you adjust it on the fly.

 Aglinment is another problem. There is a little bracket L kind of shaped that
is held by 2 little screws. This controls where the head picks up track zero. A
.007- .010 gage  is the proper gap that should be when it boots up. This stop
gets out of adjtustment from time to time.  This is viewed by looking straight
down on the drive with the cover off. Kind of near center and front.

Some times I would have to turn it over and loosen the 2 screws that held down
the stepper motor. The motor hold brackets are slotted so you can make
adjustments. Trace the out line of the bracket so you know where it was before
you move it.

If your disk drive II is erasing or destroying disk it is the read/write chipp
that is shorted out.

Is the creaky noise like a machine gun or repeptive noise it is the head moving
in and out. Check for extra items in the drive you never know what you might
find. There are some slides, but I would not spry or oil the steper motor.

TakeCare
        George


> I've got three old 'disk II' drives for an Apple II+.  Two of them actually
> have Apple Computer asset tags on them; at one point they were owned and
> used by Apple.  :-)
>
> One of them spins but won't read a disk.  I figure this is probably a common
> problem; is there a simple solution to it?  I took the outer case off the
> drive, and everything appears to be intact inside (no burn marks, no loose
> parts).
>
> The other two creak loudly when they read disks.  Is there a place inside
> where I can apply WD40 to minimize this?
>
> If there's a resource on the web which explains how I can nurse these old
> drives back to health, I'd really appreciate it; thanks!
>
> --
>   ____    |\/|                  Brian Kendig
>   \  /\   / ..__.     brian at enchanter net    You are in a maze of twisty
>    \/  \__\   _/    http://www.enchanter.net/   little passages, all alike.
>     \__   __  \_       Be insatiably curious.
>        \____\___\            Ask "why" a lot.