Dying PCjr drive; options?

[Fred Cisin]

On Sat, 8 Oct 2005, Jim Leonard wrote:
> What are my options?  Is the floppy drive in a PCjr as goofy/proprietary as the
> rest of the machine?

The drive is NOT proprietary.
One of the drives that IBM used a lot in them was the Qumetrak 142.
That is the third worst drive I've dealt with.

> If so, should I even attempt to repair it?

If it is anything other than the Qumetrak 142.

> Another related question:  When I was first getting started with personal
> computers 25 years ago, I seem to recall that track alignment was a common
> problem and could be fixed by using a calibration diskette and special software
> that you could monitor as you turned the alignment screw.  Without one of those
> factory calibration diskettes, is it even possible to align/calibrate a floppy
> drive for track alignment?

Nowhere near as well as you can with a scope and an analog alignment
diskette.
With the digital alignement disk (scopeless), you can do a marginally
adequate job.

With a scope and a diskette that is known to be in alignment (KNOWN TO BE
IN ALIGNMENT, NOT just "from a working machine), you can get the alignment
close enough to work.