Hello all, first post, sorta nervous. Only just getting back into forums, and somewhat representing a..... IDK what to call it yet. Recycle Firm? Net Group? No idea yet. Someone said internet gang, idk about that.

I'm working on a project, and an article about it, to transform a Pentium 1 machine into a Floppy Only machine that boots Kolibri and allows some use as a typewriter. If I use a hard drive, it'll be to store apps and stuff like that, but I generally want to avoid doing that. This is traditionally called an AirGap System, only with this I am taking that pretty literally. Mostly I just want my projects separated to the extent that working on something is literally a one track project, but it's also a bit of a security thing. With all the climate changes, the wind in my area has gotten more dangerous. It'd be nice to be able to up and go and KNOW that I have everything in hand. I have this thing about physical security.

However, I have found out that my USB Floppy Drives have started to have issues. One has the tray stuck, and the other is just a weird Sony drive that not all machines seem to play nicely with. I was planning on using one or the other of these drives to make my boot disk, but that is seeming to not be an option. Or at least, with the USB's.

I do however have a Pentium 4 desktop with a floppy drive in it, and on hand I have a pile of them that I can swap in, were one to have failed. Though I'm wondering if I will need to service them in the end, or if I should just use CD's instead.

Should I try my desktop? If I need to service the drives, what would I be looking for? I understand belts breaking, but I'm not sure what "cleaning the heads" means, nor what rail I should oil in the one USB drive to prevent it from sticking on eject.

Or, should I completely skip these and throw DOS / Damn Small Linux on the Toshiba (pentium 1) and try to make the disks there? I know the drive works, and I can make a DOS 6.22 HDD pretty easily, I'm just not sure what to do past that.

Thanks for any pointers, trying to figure out what to do.