Memorex Floppy Drive Needs Repair

Frankly I think you'd be better off trying to find a still-working replacement in someone's junk pile. But assuming you're sentimentally attached to this particular drive...

A quick check on Google turned up this establishment:

http://marina.mfarris.com/floppy/memorex.html

I have no knowledge of nor any connection with this company. No endorsement written or implied. Please see label on rear of package for details. Taxes, title and other fees may apply. Please contact your doctor if you have difficulty urinating.

Thank you! I have sent a request off to them as no one answers the phone. Not attached to this drive but a substitute must be of same " form fit and function" due to quality requirements.

Sound like a good time to upgrade to some technology from within the last 20 years.

Not an allowable option in this case due to quality and design requirements from my customer. This is part of a larger antiquated design that can not be upgraded due to many other reasons.

The last 8" I used was in 1980 on a Tektronix.

I think I may have used one as recently as 1983 - maybe even 1984! I still have the stepper motors salvaged from one or two... And yes, I do still have at least one of those floppies...

25 years in computers is around 5 full generations... I believe it was my 5th great-grandfather who taught math to a fellow called Isaac Newton.

Come ON! This customer needs to get realistic and up to date!

Actually, it is more or less equally probable that there is a problem with the floppy(ies) itself(themselves) rather than with the floppy drive. Have you done anything to check?

Have you done anything to check?

Normally you'd suggest trying the disk in another machine but that could be difficult in this case.

GA from me.

I agree, if the floppies have only been read from for many years, they are probably worn out.

Also, the drive heads are probably dirty, they need careful cleaning without damaging their adjustment.....

Floppy drives, when of good quality last years.

What could (have been?) be done, was to change them out for 3 1/2" 1.44 MB drives which are still available new or secondhand.....

If you still have a good drive and a good 6" floppy, I would recommend that as fast as possible......8" is probably a really "dead end!"

You have been officially "pimped" "warned!" here and now....

Luckily for you, the interface for 8" and 3 1/2" drives is very, very similar. Only connectors are really different, old cables had both connectors on the same cable as far as I remember.....with an old PC, copying should be easy.

If the customer does not want to consider that, warn him with an official letter of all the dangers....

This company made an adaptor to allow 8" drives to work with the cable for a 3½" cable which suggests that ther must be some difference in the way they are controlled.

I would not be surprised to find out that it is only a connector difference.....

You may be right, I have no understanding of the electrical requirements.

Yes, know that the floppies are good as we have a second drive we are using while trying to rebuild this one.

Well then, use the good one to read, and follow Andy's advice to write to a more modern drive.

Another possibility that I used back in the day, was to tell the old machine to print the data to a serial printer, but rather than connect a printer, connect the serial cable to the serial input of a newer computer with some program to capture the serial input. You will need either a crossover cable with appropriate connectors or a null modem adapter. I'm sure I still have both stashed away somewhere... It has been so long that I don't remember what kind of software I used to capture the incoming data.

Problems rather with the floppies - Yes also likely.

The HP 5" floppies of that time had a counter that actually disabled the floppies above a certain count, I had an assembler routine to reset the counter. The count on HP were kept on track 0 or one.

I still have a few trays of HP floppies of that time still going strong.

By changing the drive parameters HP floppies can be accessed on standard drives and that should also be available on any 8" drive as well. (I use Win 98 running in Dos mode for that)

Look at the used semiconductor instrument market. I used 8" floppies in the late 90's on 200mm semiconductor tools. I am sure someone still has working units.

I had to think for a while but it was on Hitachi SEMs.

I guess this is military instruments, thus the tight requirements and ancient tooling.