Korg Forums

fallenturtle · Joined: 27 Mar 2016 Posts: 7

Hello,

I'm slowly repairing an old Korg T1 I found in the garbage.

It looks like the previous owner spilt some liquid that got into the floppy drive... there's a bunch of rust on the cover and in particular around the head motor. While the disk spins up the head motor doesn't move, so I'm assuming it got fried so now I'm looking to replace the drive.

I think I have 3 options:

1) Replace drive with old PC drive I have kicking around and doing the mods found here: http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=103239

2) Purchase a Teac FD-235HG (found some online for $17) and perform this mod: https://www.guitar-parts.com/sites/default/files/styles/uc_product_full/public/fdd1.jpg and https://www.guitar-parts.com/sites/default/files/styles/uc_product_full/public/fdd2.jpg (the guide is for the HF, but from what I can tell the HG is just the HF with an additional mode that can be selected via the jumpers)

3) Embrace the future and get one of those Gotek USB to FDD devices and then someone figure out how to get the floppy contents I have onto a usb drive without a actual working floppy disk drive.

I'm leaning towards 2 as $17 is reasonable and the mod seems not too invasive... has anyone else done this?

3 seems nice, but I think it would be the most expensive since I'd basically have to buy an additional USB floppy drive to create an img of the factory sound disk I have... also I'm not sure if these devices will even work with the Korg... anyone with experience with this route?

Thanks.

Edit: So it seems there's like, a million variations of the FD-235HG, not all which have jumpers, so that may not be happening.

fallenturtle · Joined: 27 Mar 2016 Posts: 7

Anyone? Sorry to bump my own thread but I'm really on the fence here and would appreciate some advice.

synthjoe · Platinum Member Joined: 21 Apr 2010 Posts: 1011

I had a DSS-1 floppy drive which looked totally dead as to the stepper. I took it apart, cleaned the totally dry grease and lubed again - and it works perfectly since then... These drives were made to last, you might want to find a way to gently disassemble, clean and try again... Can you move the head by hand? If not, can you do so when removing the stepper motor? If it still is stuck when not connected to the stepper, then you might have to clean and grease the sliding parts. Otherwise check if the stepper is stuck and figure out how to fix that.

It would be interesting to know if you make any progress!