Darac Marjal writes: > You could try a disk-benchmarking program such as bonnie++. > Alternatively, use dd with alternating seek= parameters to write to the > start/end/start/end/... of the disk. Both sound like good ideas. I will try dd first since it is at hand and see if the mechanism frees up or just gets stuck. I bet it has been over ten years since this drive ever saw a floppy. Thank you.