What do you mean "working" drives ?
The heads are eating the disks. Either the disk media is really bad or the heads are damaged (or will be soon if bad media).
What model Epsons are they ?

Horun wrote on 2025-05-19, 02:39:

What do you mean "working" drives ?
The heads are eating the disks. Either the disk media is really bad or the heads are damaged (or will be soon if bad media).
What model Epsons are they ?

Sorry I meant that they were sold as "working" but now the seller admit they weren't actually tested. They are SD-600 Epsons. Seem to be somewhat hard to find. Would bad floppy disks make the noise in the spindle area that these do in the video?

Is that noise coming from the spindle or heads? If heads then they are really dirty and need urgent (but careful) cleaning.
If it's the spindle then either the motor on the bottom is somehow badly positioned, which really doesn't happen unless it was hit (with significant force) and bent. Or possibly there is so much dust, dirt and frankly perphaps sand or something of the sort between the spindle and the frame that it acts as a grinding machine now. Cleaning that properly will require unscrewing the whole motor assembly - 3 screws accesible from the top of the drive. Note the metal parts are cast but these two surfaces are machined so that the motor spindle has no wobble. If you take it aparat do not just put it together without cleaning, and care. You'll only make it worse otherwise.

Do not attempt to take the motor apart (the rotor from the PCB) - the screws here are glued, and often left-threaded. If it's somehow that part that makes the noise it might be excessive rust on the stator rubbing against rotor. Not much can be done about that, taking that apart for cleaning should be last resort.

Deunan wrote on 2025-05-19, 13:11:

Is that noise coming from the spindle or heads? If heads then they are really dirty and need urgent (but careful) cleaning.
If it's the spindle then either the motor on the bottom is somehow badly positioned, which really doesn't happen unless it was hit (with significant force) and bent. Or possibly there is so much dust, dirt and frankly perphaps sand or something of the sort between the spindle and the frame that it acts as a grinding machine now. Cleaning that properly will require unscrewing the whole motor assembly - 3 screws accesible from the top of the drive. Note the metal parts are cast but these two surfaces are machined so that the motor spindle has no wobble. If you take it aparat do not just put it together without cleaning, and care. You'll only make it worse otherwise.

Do not attempt to take the motor apart (the rotor from the PCB) - the screws here are glued, and often left-threaded. If it's somehow that part that makes the noise it might be excessive rust on the stator rubbing against rotor. Not much can be done about that, taking that apart for cleaning should be last resort.

So on that drive it's coming from what sounds like the spindle area. Almost like it's a dry friction sound. But I think some is also coming from the head and the other drive made the same spindle sound only briefly and cleared right up (maybe just from sitting?) but the head made a scraping noise. Both drives seem to be stripping material off the disk itself. I've cleaned the heads with IPA. I'm starting to wonder if it's possible the disks (One a NOS disk and the other a Gateway driver disk from 1990 ish) may just be bad and it's shedding and clogging up the head.

I may go back to the drive that only had the head noise and see if a few more cleanings of the head and an actual newly made disk (just purchased 20 of them form eBay) will help when they come in. The spindle noise on the one in the video sounds like maybe just a good cleaning of the metal frame I hope since I assume no type of lube can be allied to the frame because of the disk material being there. Seems like a high wear area.

Doing some research, but not being home to actually test anything, I'm thinking this is more of an issue with disks that are just damaged beyond repair from improper storing and handling but I will update when I get some brand new disks in.

I love this Epson-SD600
It’s My favorite drive.
It looks so modern and sleek.
There is a Dual drive to the Combo 5.26 and 3.5 floppy.

Anyways only one of mine broke. Yes that cam lock lever.
I opened the drive up and saw that the plastic broke. I glued it back to getter with “JB weld epoxy”.
Its still works now.

9646gt wrote on 2025-05-19, 13:57:

The spindle noise on the one in the video sounds like maybe just a good cleaning of the metal frame I hope since I assume no type of lube can be allied to the frame because of the disk material being there. Seems like a high wear area.

There is no friction between spindle and the metal frame. It's a tight fit, true, but as I've said it's all precisely machined. The only thing there that can be causing that noise is excessive dirt in those tight spaces.
DO NOT put any sort of lubricant on anything in the floppy drive. I've seen people do it on YT, usually way (and I mean WAY) too much and completly unnecessary. The drive should work pretty much perfectly bone dry (except motor bearing, which are sealed anyway), just needs to be clean.

Sometimes floppies themselves make a rather loud sound, obviously if dirty but some just have such poor envelope padding. But it's never as loud as on your video, though it's hard to tell without hearing it in person. I still suspect dirt in the drive.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2025-05-19, 21:53:

I love this Epson-SD600 It’s My favorite drive. It looks so modern and sleek. There is a Dual drive to the Combo 5.26 and 3.5 fl […]
Show full quote

I love this Epson-SD600
It’s My favorite drive.
It looks so modern and sleek.
There is a Dual drive to the Combo 5.26 and 3.5 floppy.

Anyways only one of mine broke. Yes that cam lock lever.
I opened the drive up and saw that the plastic broke. I glued it back to getter with “JB weld epoxy”.
Its still works now.

It's by far the nicest looking 5.25 drive and a must to restore these two Gateways!!! That dual drive is so sweet but expensive haha. I tried to fix the one with the broken plastic and was not successful so I will use JB Weld next!

Deunan wrote on 2025-05-22, 13:36:

There is no friction between spindle and the metal frame. It's a tight fit, true, but as I've said it's all precisely machined. […]
Show full quote

9646gt wrote on 2025-05-19, 13:57:

The spindle noise on the one in the video sounds like maybe just a good cleaning of the metal frame I hope since I assume no type of lube can be allied to the frame because of the disk material being there. Seems like a high wear area.

There is no friction between spindle and the metal frame. It's a tight fit, true, but as I've said it's all precisely machined. The only thing there that can be causing that noise is excessive dirt in those tight spaces.
DO NOT put any sort of lubricant on anything in the floppy drive. I've seen people do it on YT, usually way (and I mean WAY) too much and completly unnecessary. The drive should work pretty much perfectly bone dry (except motor bearing, which are sealed anyway), just needs to be clean.

Sometimes floppies themselves make a rather loud sound, obviously if dirty but some just have such poor envelope padding. But it's never as loud as on your video, though it's hard to tell without hearing it in person. I still suspect dirt in the drive.

It definitely ends dup being failing media clogging up the head and THAT was the noise heard I found out! Using better, but still imperfect with bad sectors from age, disks results in a disk that will actually format and read. I took a big risk and loaded up an original SimCity 5.25 floppy and the game read and installed everything perfectly. I have all three drives working minus one of them seems to have an issue with the spindle motor with I think it is on the back side of the little green PCB that sits above the locking cam.