Sick floppy drive on 3B1

[Boyd Ostroff]

Help!  I just went to do a backup on my 3B1 and the floppy drive spins
but does not make any seeking noises.  After a couple seconds, I get a
disk error.  Same thing happens if I try to format a disk.

I very rarely use the floppy drive (backups?  who needs backups? :-) -
it's been several months.  About a month ago I opened up my machine
for its yearly cleaning, and it occurs to me that my problem could be
related to this.  I have had intermittent floppy problems in the past,
though, and recall reading about floppy drive failures here too.

Any help will be appreciated.  My specific questions:

 1. What should I try first?  Lubrication?  Connections to check?

 2. Assuming it is dead, what do I need to buy to replace it (preferably
    plug-compatible, as I'm not much of a hardware hacker).  Where can
    I get a cheap replacement (I subscribe to Computer Shopper)?

 3. I've thought about upgrading to a 3.5" drive before.  I only use
    the floppy for backups, so I don't particularly care if I can't
    read 5.25" disks anymore and the 720K capacity would be nice.
    Again, exactly what would I need to buy for this.  Does somebody have
    complete instructions available (again, I can use a soldering iron,
    but wouldn't want to get into too big of a project)?  Is there
    a plug and play type of IBM-style 3.5" drive that can be easily
    installed?  How about an iv configuration file to format 720K disks?

 4. Anything else I should know?

Thanks in advance!

||| Boyd Ostroff - Tech Director - Dept of Theatre - SUNY Oswego 
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