Does anyone know of a source for a floppy drive for HP-9114. My drive just quick working mechanically.... the diskette won't seat and the ejector button fails to do anything useful, all the electronics seem to work properly. If you have replaced a floppy I would appreciate any advice you may have. Thanks.
John PIerce
You don't state whether this is a 9114A or a 9114B.
They use different drive mechanisms which are not interchageable. I would guess the former, since this is a known problem with the drives, though.
A PC floppy drive will not work in the 9114 (or in most other HP drive units). The original drives rotate at 600rpm, not the 300rpm used by PC drives. Therefore the data rate is twice as fast. Many other HP systems, Apricots, and a few other machines use the same drives (they're original Sony mechanisms) as the 9114A. The 9114B's drive is also a Sony, it's used in the HP9153. It shares many parts (head carriage, stepper motor, analogue IC, etc) with the Apple Mac 800K drive.
I an puzzled as to why you think you need a new drive, though. These drives, like most other real computer devices can be _repaired_. The problem is generally due to the grease on the eject mechanism going hard with age. If you're unlucky the mechanism won't latch correctly when you try to eject a disk and the top head will get caught in the disk shutter and get ripped off. If this has happened then you need a replacement head carriage. I've done this repair (took the head from another drive with electronic problems) and it's non-trivial.
Anyway, let's hope that's not happened. Start by taking the drive out of the 9114A. To do this, take out the battery pack, then undo the 4 screws on the bottom and lift off the cover. Undo the 4 screws on the controller PCB, lift up the PCB and unplug all the cables. Take out the 4 screws holding the drive to the bottom case. Take out the 4 screws holding the mounting plate on the drive.
OK, you now have the bare drive. Take off the cover by undoing the screw on the back. Look at the upper head. If it seems to be sitting straight and in the right place, then all you need to do is sort out the eject mechanism. If it's twisted or hanging loose, then you need a new head carriage :-(
If it's OK, then take out the 3 screws on the bottom, and take off the screening cover (it looks like silver cardboard). Ease up the drive PCB and unplug all the cables. Take out the 2 screws at the front inside the chassis casting and remove the front panel, eject button and spring.
Back on top, take off the eject damper (rear left corner, held on with one screw). Take out the 2 screws holding the head load solenoid bracket in place (one also holds an earth tag), put a piece of clean paper between the heads and remove the load solenoid assembly. Feed its cable through the chassis.
Now undo the 4 screws inside the chassis casting on the bottom and take off the complete disk holder/eject mechanism.
To take this apart, IIRC, you undo a screw at the left side, then take off a couple of E-circlips. It comes apart into the left sideplate, the disk holder, and the right sideplate with the eject levers. Oh, there are some rods and spacers. The first time I did this, the spacers on one of the rods were stuck fast with the grease and I didn't realise they were separate parts!
Unhook the springs on the eject levers so you can move them around. Then clean off all the old, hard, grease with propan-2-ol. Clean up all the parts, put a little new grease on the levers, and put it all back together. It probsbly took me longer to type this than it does to do it...
If you need to replace the head, and can get one, then I can talk you through doing the alignment...
"Repair"... what a concept. I wonder who thought of it. Must not be from the last few decades... I particularly like the new Volvo design where you need special tools and four people to remove the hood (aka bonnet) and access the engine.