I thought I was making progress on the floppy front.

I had bought a job-lot of around 20 old Amiga floppy disks, from a local computer shop. All evidently used for copied software, and probably badly stored and unused for the best part of twenty years.

Still, I had salvaged around five of them, which have been working reliably. My Amiga is a 1200 - and the floppy drive has sort-of worked okay. I've had reasonable success with commercial software and cover disks still working on its internal drive.

Yesterday, after attempting to salvage another of those 20 computer shop disks, the drive (or floppy) was making awful screaching noises as it span. I've read that this happens when there's a dust particle or bit of grit. Gave up on that one so tried another - this made a similar sound and on attempting to format popped up a message on Workbench referring to something called "Copylock"? Strange. Tried another. The "Copylock" message again. On another disk. Thought I would try one of my known good floppies- previously working without sniff of a disk error. Yet more strange. Instead of autobooting as previously, Workbench loaded with the disk listed as "NDOS". This was definitely previously autobooting but also readable from Workbench. Gulp. Tried a second similarly known working disk, and it did exactly the same thing. And then the third. STopped trying after that.

In attmepting to re-format those now misbehaving, previouly good floppies, I got a "Cannot format Track 0" error.

This smells to me like I've knocked out the head alignment of the floppy drive with those bad screeching disks. But what about the "copylock" error? Could I have introduced some virus that had been hibernating on those old pirated floppies?

My reseach into head alignment suggests this is a tricky process and requires a known good and correctly aligned drive to compare the drive against. Maybe I could send this drive to Amigakit for checking. I'll give them a ring.

Any thoughts or comments? Love floppies...when they are working.
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: >>> Magnum BBS <<< - bbs.magnum.uk.net (39:136/3)

Did you ever try cleaning it thoroughly with isopropyl alcohol, and putting fresh lithium grease on the rails & everywhere else metal rubs against metal?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2024/05/29 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Archaic Binary (39:902/501)

Re: Floppy issues...
By: halian to Ginger1 on Thu Jul 18 2024 23:28:07

Did you ever try cleaning it thoroughly with isopropyl alcohol, and putting fresh lithium grease on the rails & everywhere else metal rubs against metal?

I did try isopropyl alcohol on the floppy heads, but not greasing things up. Will give that a try.
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: >>> Magnum BBS <<< - bbs.magnum.uk.net (39:136/3)

Did you ever try cleaning it thoroughly with isopropyl alcohol, and put fresh lithium grease on the rails & everywhere else metal rubs against metal?

I did try isopropyl alcohol on the floppy heads, but not greasing things u Will give that a try.

Any luck?

-Ƕƒlian

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2024/05/29 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Archaic Binary * bbs.archaicbinary.net (39:902/501)