I'm trying to fix a floppy drive on a piece of "computerized equipment", not a pc. (thus no OS or cpu/ram) The drive looks like a standard 1.44 floppy drive, so I tried to replace it with 7 different working drives. the machine software won't recognize any but the original. so I tried fixing the drive by opening it. Dust! I cleaned it really well, unscrewed the read write heads and the little electric motor and everything. good and bad idea I guess cuz the drive now works normally. It now reads, writes and formats floppies, but other pcs cannot read the disks. I can format a disk on the machine, read and write files, and format it again on an a computer, and read and write files. basically making any floppy usable on both the machine and the computer at the same time but niether one can read the other's saved files. I'd just put a new drive in but this drive seems to be the only one the machine will take. I assume I've misaligned the heads in cleaning, how do I get them online again. I have to be able to read saved information on other computers and vise versa. what do I do? PS> if it helps the drive says panasonic model JU-257 and has about five tiny switches on the circuit board. one with markings 0,1,2,3, one with PS2, AT, and a few others that I'm not sure about. I've never seen a floppy drive with switches, so I wonder if thats what makes this so special that its the only one the machine will take. thanks in advance for any help.

The read/write head is out of alignment. That drive will only be good for that particular system. as long as the head remains out of alignment floppies that are written by that drive won't work on other computers floppy drives. I'd just get another drive since they are quite cheap these days rather than trying to fix it.

The Panasonic JU-257 is an ancient 1.44MB FDD and the settings for those little jumpers can be found here: http://support.ap.dell.com/docs/dta/24570/00000005.htm Thats the reason newer drives won't work. As for your problem with disks not being able to be read elsewhere, I would say that it is caused by a minor misalignment of the read/write heads, thus it writes to disks in a way that other drives cannot understand.

I agree with Adam that it's jumpered to a different file format. I had that with a 720kb amiga floppy. It's a totally normal 720kb teac pc floppy but it can be jumpered to work in the amiga file format with 800kb. I used it a second floppy for a dos program that allowed me to copy my original amiga floppy disk on the pc and to transfer it into the emulator fileformat at the same time. To do that I needed a second floppy. I think it something similiar with your floppy!

Many years ago I saw floppy drive head alignment diskettes. Maybe a search will turn up a source.

I looked at the Dell support site, but unless I am missing something it does not provide the purpose of the switches. Using google to search for:- a)panasonic +"ju-257" or b)panasonic +"ju-257" +tech throws up a number of interesting sites, one being:- http://www.rapid-tech.com/products/panasonic.htm Where a replacement unit maybe purchased. Take care though, there appears to be various derivations of this fdd model. Good luck - Keep us posted.

the current switch configuration is as follows. () around the current position (AT) PS2 MO (MS) (0) 3 2 1 (RY) DC (NC) EX there is a sticker next to the JU-257 that says T773P. I ripped it off and underneath it says A023P. I wonder if this is a modified or upgraded model.(?) I managed to find J-257A023P available for purchase at this site for a whopping $135. http://www.codemicro.com/store/prod_results.cfm/mode/5/srchparm/JU257A023P.cfm I managed to find this (below) at http://www.secarica.ro/html/plus3_hardware.html Panasonic JU-257-203P has DIPswitches - switch for motor driving, two positions, labelled MO or MS - switch for the ready signal, two positions, labelled RY or DC - switch for drive select, four positions, labelled DS0, or DS1, or DS2, or DS3 For +3 use, the switches have to be set to MO and RY. its somewhat helpful, but not detailed enough