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Floppy drive only reads disks if formatted in that drive

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First post, by kevmif

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I have a Panasonic JU-257-204P 1.44MB FDD.
I thought it was stuffed as it wouldn't read any disks. I tried formatting a disk and it worked perfectly, but said disk would not work in other drives.
I formatted the disk in a different drive no worries and it wouldn't work in the first drive.

Am I likely correct in suspecting the drive head may be misaligned? If so, is there anything I can do to fix it? If not, what else could be wrong?

Thanks

Reply 1 of 3, by Vaudane

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Definitely sounds like head alignment issue. Guides used to exist for head alignment on 5.25" drives, but 3.5" drives were deemed as "too cheap" to bother with. They also often lack the alignment screws to actually move the heads.

Crack it open and see if there's any obvious misalignment. You could strip it down and rebuild it and see if that sorts it.

Reply 2 of 3, by mR_Slug

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You can usually align 3.5 drives by loosening the screws on the head actuator motor, then turning the motor slightly. Its a bit of a process though. Got a few PS/2 drives into alignment just by doing directory reads on a known good disk, and twisting re-tightening the screws.

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