User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Jun 25, 2018 12:13 pm

Technically, yes. Although I think it can be fairly involved.

What I've done is purchase one of these in the past. They are a little pricey (IMO) but quiet and mine performs well. My only issue with that drive is from an aesthetics standpoint - the 3D printed button is very functional but pretty chunky unless you go after it with some light sanding and spray paint.

Unfortunately that particular model is out of stock at the moment. I do see several used options over on Ebay...

User avatar
AstuteHorse

Posted Mon Jun 25, 2018 1:03 pm

I've just seen this, which converts a standard floppy to work in an Amiga,

It's worth a go in my opinion, I've got loads of them lying around.

User avatar
brufnus

Posted Tue Nov 09, 2021 9:54 pm

AstuteHorse wrote:
Sun Jun 24, 2018 1:10 pm
Good evening everyone,

I have been given an Amiga 500, got it home and it starts up fine but seems to have issues reading floppy disks,

Initially it was able to read SimCity and got to the main menu but after restarting the machine I got the following errors,

"Error validating disk, Disk is unreadable"
and
"Disk structure corrupt, Use DISKDOCTOR to correct it"

After a while, it will now just boot to the Amiga Workbench V1.3 start up screen and will now no longer get any further than this. Putting a floppy in now will make the image on screen flash a few times and then return to the static image.

It also makes some awful noises while trying to read the disks, this is my first Amiga 500 so not sure if this is normal.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Hi, I know this is an old thread, but if you still have that floppy drive, I may be able to help. As far as I can see, it's a FB354, am I correct? I've just repaired one of these, and it was a nightmare but I got stubborn and in the end I succeeded.

First of all, it needs to be clean, of course... but you've done that, hopefully the track 0 sensor as well, which may otherwise cause malfunction.
Next, it's of utmost importance there's no slack at all between the head slider assembly and the stepper motor shaft (mine had, so I removed the screw and adjusted it too much, so I had to relax it a bit again, then it was spot on).
Make sure both shafts are clean, using some IPA, and then lubricate them slightly with some grease.

Finally, if needed, you can use the program "TrackDiskSync" from Aminet; it writes a few tracks on a known good floppy drive, as well as play a tone which has the highest pitch at track 0. Then the bad drive can be calibrated by using that high pitch sound as reference.... I did it like that, and it worked like a charm!
To recalibrate it, the head assembly can be shifted back and forth, and fine adjustment can then be made by slacking the screws at the stepper motor and then turn it very slightly.





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