That head motor might have taken some dirt in? I don't have a very good recommendation on how to fix that I'm afraid. You can dismantle the drive and remove the motor just to try turning its shaft with your fingers to see if it's indeed seized up or not. Hopefully it's not, then probably some white grease can be applied on the shafts to ensure the head assembly slides nicely on them.

Good luck

wbahnassi wrote on Today, 08:18:

That head motor might have taken some dirt in? I don't have a very good recommendation on how to fix that I'm afraid. You can dismantle the drive and remove the motor just to try turning its shaft with your fingers to see if it's indeed seized up or not. Hopefully it's not, then probably some white grease can be applied on the shafts to ensure the head assembly slides nicely on them.

Good luck

Thanks for the reply. It did indeed seem stiff. I don't have any white grease. So I used a small brush to apply a tiny amount of WD40 to the motor shaft and also the smooth shaft that the head runs on. It now sounds much better, and no error as far as the boot process Is concerned now.

The next issue is that it says it can't read the disk. I think it is making the right sounds now? It's been 30 years since I last had a 5.25" drive so my memory may be faulty.

I have tried cleaning the heads with IPA and cotton buds and also cleaned the contacts that the floppy cable connect to.

The floppy cable is brand new, bought on ebay. The floppy disks I am using are brand new 3M disks (from sealed box of disks). I have tried a game disk also (StarGlider by Rainbird).

Here is what it does now:

https://youtu.be/Vb2OKdPew2A?si=5T_uJ3OKWdZMS_iB