+orpheuswaking Posted April 8, 2007 Share Posted April 8, 2007 I have the option to get a 1050, apparently the drive spins and the LED comes on but when you put a disk in and turn the computer on it runs Boot Error down the screen. This suggests to me a controller issue rather than a mech issue. Would this sound about right to you guys? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted April 8, 2007 Share Posted April 8, 2007 I have the option to get a 1050, apparently the drive spins and the LED comes on but when you put a disk in and turn the computer on it runs Boot Error down the screen. This suggests to me a controller issue rather than a mech issue. Would this sound about right to you guys? I don't know if there is a problem with the drive or not but if you put a formatted disk with no DOS on it, the 'boot error' thing will happen even on a working drive. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+orpheuswaking Posted April 8, 2007 Author Share Posted April 8, 2007 He's using a commercial game disk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urchlay Posted April 8, 2007 Share Posted April 8, 2007 He's using a commercial game disk Has he tried the same disk in another drive, to prove it's a good disk? Has he tried more than one disk in the ailing drive? Cleaning the head would be a good idea, too. 3 of my 4 "dead" drives turned out to be just fine, once I cleaned the heads (and the 4th one comes a lot closer to working than it did, too). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+orpheuswaking Posted April 8, 2007 Author Share Posted April 8, 2007 Ok that's a good question, how do YOU clean the heads? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urchlay Posted April 8, 2007 Share Posted April 8, 2007 Ok that's a good question, how do YOU clean the heads? Get some q-tips (preferably the foam kind) and some 92% isopropyl alcohol. If you don't have 92%, go out and buy some... if you *must* use 70% alcohol, you can, just remember that the other 30% is water. Take the top cover off the drive. The head is in the middle of the drive mech, in between a couple of metal rails. It should be obvious which part is the head: it's the part of the drive mech that touches the exposed part of the disk, when the disk is in the drive. Actually, the head itself faces up, and there's an arm with a felt pressure pad that sits on top of it. Before you start cleaning the head, it's probably a good idea to spray the inside of the drive with some compressed air (or Dust Off, which is actually butane) to get rid of any loose dust or gunk inside the drive. Wet q-tip with alcohol, scrub the head. Black gunk may come off... if so, keep cleaning it until there's no more black gunk. Even if no black gunk comes off, scrub it for a while anyway. It's OK to use a bit of force when scrubbing (don't overdo it). Try not to get alcohol anywhere but the drive head (it's not fatal if you do, just annoying). If you're using cotton q-tips, be careful not to leave any cotton fibers on the head (foam q-tips won't have this problem). Also, clean the underside of the felt pressure pad (with q-tip + alcohol). Be careful: the pressure pad arm is cheap plastic, don't bend/break it or you'll probably have to replace the whole mech (since it's probably impossible to buy just the arm by itself, these days). A warning about the pressure pad: I don't know how common this is, but I own one drive (an Indus GT, not a 1050) where the pressure pad assembly is loose, and able to rotate. I have no idea why, but the drive only works with the pad rotated to a certain position. If your drive is like this, try not to rotate the pad... but if the drive still doesn't work after cleaning, you might *have* to experiment with rotation (mine is so loose that it occasionally gets knocked out of position during normal drive operation). Most likely, you can completely ignore this warning on a 1050 (has anyone ever seen a 1050 with a loose pressure pad assembly? I haven't...) Some people recommend lubricating the metal rails that the drive head is attached to, but I don't... the drive may run quieter if you lube the rails, but you run the risk of getting lubricant on the head, which won't do it any good (and I don't think lubrication extends the life of the drive anyway: the rails and head assembly are already likely to outlast the drive head itself). Let dry for a while (20 minutes is probably enough, a lot longer if you used 70% alcohol), reassemble drive, and test. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tezz Posted April 8, 2007 Share Posted April 8, 2007 (edited) Ok that's a good question, how do YOU clean the heads?You can use a special disk designed just for cleaning the heads. The disk has a pourous material inside rather than the usual magnetic media and usually has a small hole in the disk where you add a small amount of (alcohol i think) fluid. You allow the disk to spin in the drive and the heads to attempt to read the disk for a short while and thus cleans the heads. ** EDIT! LOL beaten to the reply again! Jet spraying the inside of the drive is a good idea as Urchlay suggests, I always do that first thing with all computer equipment. Edited April 8, 2007 by Tezz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urchlay Posted April 8, 2007 Share Posted April 8, 2007 You can use a special disk designed just for cleaning the heads. The disk has a pourous material inside rather than the usual magnetic media and usually has a small hole in the disk where you add a small amount of (alcohol i think) fluid. You allow the disk to spin in the drive and the heads to attempt to read the disk for a short while and thus cleans the heads. If you can find a new 5 1/4" cleaning disk for sale anywhere, go for it... don't use it without the alcohol though. The q-tip/alcohol method is more thorough, and I doubt there will ever come a time when you can't find q-tips and rubbing alcohol for sale Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dinosaur Posted April 9, 2007 Share Posted April 9, 2007 WARNING! When you scrub the head,only go along the front to back axis. Scrubbing from side to side can affect the head alignment (and create a whole new bunch of problems!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+orpheuswaking Posted April 9, 2007 Author Share Posted April 9, 2007 WARNING! When you scrub the head,only go along the front to back axis. Scrubbing from side to side can affect the head alignment (and create a whole new bunch of problems!) Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urchlay Posted April 9, 2007 Share Posted April 9, 2007 WARNING! When you scrub the head,only go along the front to back axis. Scrubbing from side to side can affect the head alignment (and create a whole new bunch of problems!) Whoops! Maybe that's why my 4th drive isn't working... It seems to work OK, but errors out occasionally, always on the same sectors (on the same disk, I mean. Different disks have different sets of sectors the drive can't read, but for a given disk, the errors occur in the same place). The same disks work fine in any of my other 3 drives. Did I break it? If so, how can I fix it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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