Just installing it into a system is probably the best way to test it.

Regular desktop models of quantum hard drives I have seen also have rubber in them that melt away and render the drive inoperable. But the only way to way to really know it works is just to try to use it.

Well I bit the bullet and cut open the static bag. I installed it into a generic AT clone machine (AMD 10mhz, 1MB RAM). After creating a boot disk with the driver and other setup files, I installed the card and fired it up. There was the unmistakable sound of a hard drive spinning, but the driver tried initializing the drive and I could hear the head moving, but it came up with an error. I figured a reboot couldn't hurt. This time the driver loaded and I was able to partition and format the drive just fine. It's been running for a few hours now. I figured it best to let it warm up and stay running for a bit since it's been sitting for over 30 years.

Not sure how long it will last, but it will be useful while it does. Now I just need to find out what happened to one of the 5.25 drives in the machine. It had made 2 disks useless from just trying to read them. Can't even reformat them on another drive.

Awesome! I'm glad to hear it works.

Tincanalley wrote on 2025-06-27, 21:44:

Not sure how long it will last, but it will be useful while it does. Now I just need to find out what happened to one of the 5.25 drives in the machine. It had made 2 disks useless from just trying to read them. Can't even reformat them on another drive.

Some 360KB media have degraded in a way that their magnetic coating no longer sticks to the floppy plastic disk, but gets loose and accumulates as debris on any floppy drive head the disk in inserted into. This kind of debris at the heads may then scratch the magnetic film of (up to then) undamaged floppy drives. So the recommendation with that symptom is to thoroughly clean the heads of the drive that damages disks.

mkarcher wrote on 2025-06-28, 14:57:

Tincanalley wrote on 2025-06-27, 21:44:

Not sure how long it will last, but it will be useful while it does. Now I just need to find out what happened to one of the 5.25 drives in the machine. It had made 2 disks useless from just trying to read them. Can't even reformat them on another drive.

Some 360KB media have degraded in a way that their magnetic coating no longer sticks to the floppy plastic disk, but gets loose and accumulates as debris on any floppy drive head the disk in inserted into. This kind of debris at the heads may then scratch the magnetic film of (up to then) undamaged floppy drives. So the recommendation with that symptom is to thoroughly clean the heads of the drive that damages disks.

The disks are in good condition, but I think I screwed up. I left the disk in the drive with it clamped for almost a year. I think the pressure caused the coating to stick to the head and the spin up didn't help. Now it leaves a perfect scratch hear the outer edge o any disk I put in it, even after a 99% IPA cleaning. Either going to have to disassemble it to see the head better (upper head), or find my usb bore camera and see if I can position it for a closeup.