Disassembling Macintosh IIsi Floppy Drive

Written By: Chris Green
  • Comments: 3
Disassembling Macintosh IIsi Floppy Drive

Difficulty

Moderate

Steps

4

Time Required

10 - 20 minutes

Introduction

The Macintosh IIsi came with a red-ribbon 1.44MB "SuperDrive" (and yes, just like DVD-Burning "SuperDrives" this was the best available option)

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    • Start by turning the computer around, and remove this #0 Phillips Screw.

    • There may or may not be a Phillips #0 screw here, depending on whether or not the computer has ever been serviced.

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    • Now lift these two clips, and slowly pivot the case up.

    • You can now seperate the top of the computer from the rest of the machine.

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    • The "SuperDrive" is mounted similarly to the hard drive, and positioned right next to it.

    • Push these two tabs out, and lift the drive up.

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    • Flip the drive so it is on top of the power supply, and remove the "Red-Ribbon" cable.

    • 1.44MB floppy drives need a ribbon cable with a red stripe on one side. 400KB floppy drives use a ribbon cable with a yellow stripe on one side. 800KB floppy drives can use a red, or yellow striped cable.

    • This drive was manufactured by Sony in 1990.

    Excellent pictures and easy guide! Thank you very much. My IISI floppy drive started flawlessly after 25y and the disk could be read. however it did it just once. Then I could not eject it any more. It did not work anymore. Can I replace it with a Sony MPF 920E? What type of cableadapter do I need

    Georgu Jörg -

    Generally these old Macs only work with Apple style floppy drives, they use both a different cable and signaling standard than PC drives. If your drive isn't ejecting your best bet is to either replace it with a similar 1.44MB "SuperDrive", or service the drive. There are some good videos floating around the web about how to repair and maintain these old drives, and it isn't actually too hard to disassemble and clean them.

    Chris Green -

Conclusion

To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.

Author

Chris Green

Member since: 11/10/09

36876 Reputation

One comment

Hi there, I have IIsi Mac but the driver couldn’t read all the floppy dsks!

note: it was stored for more than 7 years.

Q. How can I clean it and what is the suitable cleaning items you recommend?

thanks.

Abdulaziz -