AT&T 6300 Floppy Drives

[~XT6510300~Frank McGee~C23~M24~6326~]

In article <1229 at wpi.wpi.edu> mhampson at wpi.wpi.edu (Mark A. Hampson) writes:
>Does anyone have a solid explaination as to why the floppy drives of the
>AT&T 6300 spin slowly?  I have a large number of these machines that I 
[.........]
>I borrowed a program called RediScope which uses the Dysan Digital Test
>Diskette and can check disk speed, alignment etc.  Every one of the drives
>reported slow. (292 RPM instead of the normal 300+/-5 RPM).  I was told by
[........]
>hole in it considering that the drives are built by toshiba and are printed
>with markings for 300 RPM at 12VDC.  (Not AC 50 Hz here)

These two points would seem to contradict each other.  The drive is not
modified by AT&T in any way, and Toshiba says they should be spinning at
300 RPM.  I used to support over 300 6300's and never saw problems moving
disks between 6300's, IBM PC's, IBM AT's, Zenith clones, Radio Shack
clones, NCR clones, and even a few no-name clones.  As floppy drives get
used, they wear out -- plain and simple.  We never saw abnormal failures
even under extreme usage.

You might want to try actually removing the drives and physically
cleaning them (ie, removing all the dust and stuff).  In many cases 
PC's are placed under desks, in cabinets, etc. where they are 
exposed to a LOT of dust that gets sucked into them from their fans.
It's a good idea to vacuum out your PC every now and then, and make
sure your cleaning crew dusts them when they clean at night.

Unfortunately, it looks like your drives are worn out and need to be
replaced.  You should be able to pick up replacement drives for less
than $100 each.
-- 
Frank McGee
Tier 3 Indirect Channel Sales Support
attmail!fmcgee