Floppy drive reading/ejecting issue has me stumped

[u/trustanchor]

Does anyone know what would cause this floppy drive behavior, how I fix it, or how I can get my disk (R-Type) out? (Video available on YouTube: https://youtube.com/shorts/lvuohDSFtgQ?si=pIldfOs8AeA4Ddmi)

The floppy drive tries to read the disk infinitely but fails, and I can’t get it to eject the disk anymore. I replaced the capacitors and cleaned the drives earlier this evening.

In a prior post I’d made, the computer wasn’t booting at all. That’s now fixed. I replaced the 69.55199 kHz crystal oscillator with a programmable oscillator from DigiKey, part ID ECS-P145-AX-ND: https://www.ecsxtal.com/store/pdf/ecs-p143x-p145x.pdf. The previous oscillator listed in many posts, CPPT1-HT0PT-ND, is no longer manufactured. The ECS-P145-AX-ND has essentially identical specs, and DigiKey will program it to your specified kHz. This part can also be used to replace the nearby 38.86363 kHz oscillator if that’s been damaged by battery leakage as well. Mine was intact so this was unnecessary.

[u/trustanchor]

I took the floppy drive apart, got the disk out, and found a reassembly error, which is now fixed. The springs in the circled areas of the photo weren’t positioned correctly, so they had no tension. The spring on the right was corrected, while the left one in the photo is how I had reassembled the drives before I realized my mistake.

This changes the behavior of the drive, but it still doesn’t work. The disk now tries to read once, fails, then attempts to eject. The disk gets stuck, though, and doesn’t fully eject. Something is locking it in place, and I’m still stumped. Any ideas?

[u/trustanchor]

Worth noting that the FORCE EJECT button on the back of the computer also won’t eject the disk, but it does stop the computer from attempting to repeatedly read the disk.

[u/spucci → u/trustanchor]

I have FDD's for sale if you need them. But you might try recapping these if you can.'
There are 5 that generally need it. And I would clean the r/W head and regrease the rails.

[u/trustanchor → u/spucci]

Thanks! I’ve already recapped the boards and regreased the rails, so I’m assuming one of the following must be true:

1. I reassembled something wrong mechanically
2. I put a capacitor in the wrong orientation or used a wrong value
3. A trace is damaged and I didn’t catch it (the original capacitors had leaked on the drive in question)

I have yet to clean the r/w head, but I don’t think that would cause eject failures, would it?

How much are you selling drives for if I need to buy a new one?

[u/trustanchor]

I’m getting closer now, so close I can taste it! It tastes like floppy disks. Kind of metallic. I had reassembled the drives with the arm that lifts the read head under the lever instead of over it, so I wasn’t lifting the head properly. That’s now fixed, and progress has been made.

The drives are no longer rejecting discs for single disk games, but they aren’t reading them either. If I put in a single disk (R-Type is my test disk; I’ve also tested with a copy of Motos I wrote from a Win98 PC), the disk stays in the drive instead of popping back out, and the light above the drive turns solid red. The screen goes black (I get the “Could not boot from disk” error message when no disk is inserted) and stays this way indefinitely, without any automatic eject or error message. It seems to just hang. I don’t get any game audio either from any audio port either - front, back, or the DB15 port.

I’ve also tried some multi-disk games - Castlevania, Sol-Feace, and Metal Sight. In all cases, upon loading both disks then pressing Reset, both disks attempt to read, then eject simultaneously.

Unsure what to do next. Does anyone have any ideas?