Macintosh 800k Floppy Doesn't Eject

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Level 1

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Macintosh 800k Floppy Doesn't Eject

I recently asked anoter question about my mac512k, and got it to come on for me 🙂

but then to find out, the internal 800k floppy no longer ejects when in the drop down menu you press eject. When i click the eject button, it make a whirling sound, the a prompt comes up and says something like "this floppy is unable to be read" or something about it being corrupted. i use a paper clip to manually eject the floppy, turn on the mac again, insert the floppy and it reads it fine. The drive was giving trouble before this happening by not ejecting it all the way out, just partially, but now it won't eject or move the floppy at all.

I'm not going to try opening my mac anytime soon, but, is the floppy dirve just gummed up or is it a machincal problem?

Thanks for the help

Posted on Apr 20, 2012 12:37 AM

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Answer 1

Jan Hedlund

Level 7

22,171 points

Apr 20, 2012 4:47 AM in response to jbowden07

One explanation would be hardened grease. For general information about lubrication, the link below could possibly be of interest to you.

http://68kmla.org/wiki/Floppy_Drive_Lubrication

Also, the usual warning: Opening a compact Mac can be very dangerous because of the high voltages involved. This is work for a person with the necessary expertise only.

Jan

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Answer 2

Apr 20, 2012 4:53 AM in response to jbowden07

You'll need to open the mac to fix the mechanical failure in the drive. It's either lubrication as Jan mentioned, or the gear finally got chewed up in trying to push the tray up. Fortunately, you can add an external disk drive to your Mac and use that, completely bypassing the internal drive until you get it fixed.

This page has some nice details about all the types of external drives:

http://vintagemacworld.com/drives.html

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Answer 3

Gnolivos

Level 1

4 points

Feb 13, 2016 3:32 PM in response to JustSomeGuy

IIt's typically the small yellow gear that goes brittle after years. If you check eBay or Shapeways you will find a replacement. I did.

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Answer 4

Aug 18, 2016 10:43 AM in response to jbowden07

Perhaps ist a no mechanical problem of the drive, because you can use the paper clip to force the eject. Have you tried to use the disc utility to check the floppy? Maybe the (software) routine to eject a floppy includes a check, if open files or cecksums are ok. You can also try to copy the content of your floppy on the desktop, than reformat the floppy and finally re-copy the content on the floppy.

ciao

Massimo

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