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Hi all,

I’ve had an HP 82901M dual floppy disk drive in storage for a couple of years but never used. I got it as a bundle with my HP85. It has been kept dry although it gets cool in the garage at times. I’m finally getting around to using it - but it wanted to get some advice before turning it on - in case there are any gotchas.

Is there anything, such as checking the heads, that is best done before turning it on? I don’t want to trash it if there any avoidable errors in getting a long dormant unit working again.

thanks

Tony

On 2022-02-26 15:00, Tony wrote:

Hi all,

I’ve had an HP 82901M dual floppy disk drive in storage for a couple of years but never used. I got it as a bundle with my HP85. It has been kept dry although it gets cool in the garage at times. I’m finally getting around to using it - but it wanted to get some advice before turning it on - in case there are any gotchas.

Is there anything, such as checking the heads, that is best done before turning it on? I don’t want to trash it if there any avoidable errors in getting a long dormant unit working again.

thanks

Tony

The drive in the 82901 is a Tandon TM100.? They do not suffer from sticky? mechanism Like the Sony 3.5 drive in 9121 or 9122. Potential issues are loose and/or degraded drive belt, motor speed drift, head contamination, and contamination on the rails the head carriage moves on.? The service guide for the TM100 may be found at <>


Paul.

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On 2022-02-27 05:56, Tony wrote:

Thanks Paul - very helpful.

Do you know of a source of replacement drive belts for these units?

Thanks

Tony

Sorry I don't know where you can get a replacement, but if they are made anything like the belts on a couple Shugart SA800 drive I just repaired they should be ok.? You may see a little flutter in the belt but that is probably ok the important thing is that the spindle? turns turns at the correct speed and is constant.

One comment I will make about 5.25 diskettes is sometimes they seem to get squashed and the media does not turn freely inside the jacket, if you encounter this, running the edges across a sharp corner of a desk will spread the sides and free up the media.

Since any 5.25 media you find these days is probably pretty old and you may also encounter what is called "sticky shed" caused by the binder that holds the magnetic particles to the base degrading.? If you encounter this some of the goo will and up on the heads and if not cleaned up right away, the goo may transfer to the next diskette you put in.? Personally I have only encounters this with very cheap media, recently I have been archiving old diskettes some of which are 40 years old and have not encounter any issue yet.

Paul.