Re: Disused Floppy Drive Needs Head Exercise.

[Stan Hoeppner <stan@hardwarefreak.com>]

On 11/6/2012 11:34 AM, Martin McCormick wrote:
> Stan Hoeppner writes:
>> #!/bin/bash
>> count=0
>> while [ $count -le 100 ]; do
>>    dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/dev/null count=1 skip=1
>>    dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/dev/null count=1 skip=2940
>>    let count=count+1
>> done
> 
> Thanks! That appears to be doing the job. Time will tell if it
> frees it up.

You're welcome Martin.  If that doesn't do the trick you could try
adding a small amount of white lithium grease--not the spray but the
squeeze tube stuff--to the worm gear.  Squeeze out a blob about the size
of a match head and work it into the grooves between the worm gear
threads.  It should work its way into the track teeth as you exercise
the drive with the script.  I'd do this anyway in addition even if the
script loosens it up as it'll decrease the load on the motor.  As the
drive is old, without adding lubrication, it may fail right after you
get it loosened up.  Lubing will require partially disassembling the
drive but this isn't difficult.  Or you could pick up a handful of used
drives at Geekabytes or similar, assuming you don't have a box of old
drives squirreled away in the dept somewhere.

I'm trying to "go the extra mile" a bit here to help you, as I've been
graciously allowed to use your stratum 1 NTP server for many years.

-- 
Stan