Atari 1050 Disk Drive Help!

[blazintomato]

Hi everyone -

I'm totally new to Atari, but recently wound up with a pair of 800XL's and a single 1050 Disk Drive that a professor of mine was about to throw away. In any case, the 800XL's both turn on and boot to BASIC just fine, and operate from there without a hitch, and they can both load cartridges without any problems. The 1050, however, acts strangely. When I turn it on, the power light comes on, and the busy light turns on too, and you can hear the drive spinning for a moment. It stops spinning and the busy light turns off after a second or two, but then, a little while later, will come back on and the disk drive starts spinning again. And then it stops again, and starts again, and keeps doing that. I've tried turning it on with and without a disk inside of the drive, and it doesn't change this behavior. When used with either of the 800XL's, before the word "Ready" comes up in BASIC, there's a noise that I think was described here as "farty", which from what I understand is an error code? What I'm trying to figure out is whether this is a problem with the SIO cable, or if something is mechanically wrong with the Drive, and if so, what I can do to fix it. Thanks a lot for your help!

[candle]

"farty" noise from atari before ready shows up is normal - if drive would not be connected

and if act like this and is not responding on commands send by computer (farty noise) then it could be everything - check rom chip first, pull it out and put on again - may help, won't hurt

Edited February 16, 2009 by candle

[blazintomato]

Thanks! But how can I identify the ROM chip? I'm comfortable taking it apart and looking around but I'm just now sure which chip you mean.

[Assem]

Sounds like the problem I was getting with my drive. Unfortunately I couldn't resolve it but you may have more luck. Please see this thread....

 

1050 Drive Problem

[Bryan]

This topic might help:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=121213

[blazintomato]

Got it - I'll check those and see. Thanks a lot!

[Fuji-Man]

Hi,

 

Make sure the drive selection switches are set to Drive 1. The computer won't boot a disk if it is not set to Drive 1.

 

I believe the both the black and white switches have to be in the left position.

 

Fuji-Man

 

Hi everyone -

I'm totally new to Atari, but recently wound up with a pair of 800XL's and a single 1050 Disk Drive that a professor of mine was about to throw away. In any case, the 800XL's both turn on and boot to BASIC just fine, and operate from there without a hitch, and they can both load cartridges without any problems. The 1050, however, acts strangely. When I turn it on, the power light comes on, and the busy light turns on too, and you can hear the drive spinning for a moment. It stops spinning and the busy light turns off after a second or two, but then, a little while later, will come back on and the disk drive starts spinning again. And then it stops again, and starts again, and keeps doing that. I've tried turning it on with and without a disk inside of the drive, and it doesn't change this behavior. When used with either of the 800XL's, before the word "Ready" comes up in BASIC, there's a noise that I think was described here as "farty", which from what I understand is an error code? What I'm trying to figure out is whether this is a problem with the SIO cable, or if something is mechanically wrong with the Drive, and if so, what I can do to fix it. Thanks a lot for your help!

[blazintomato]

Yes - I've made sure that the drive switches are set to the left. My thinking is that something must be wrong with the drive, since even when it isn't plugged into the computer, it still continuously starts to spin, stops, and does it again ad infinitum. In other words, it doesn't really give the user a chance to insert a disk, since after the first time the busy light turns off, it turns right back on again.

[candle]

if you have DMM, observe 5V line, is there a drop during/just before restart?

[blazintomato]

if you have DMM, observe 5V line, is there a drop during/just before restart?

 

I don't have one on me right now, but I can find one to check. If that's the case, what does that mean?

[candle]

it means something consumes too much power and voltage drop causes the reset of whole drive logic, or - power conversion is inefficient due to (most probably) bad filtering caps at input (those 2 big ones - might be loose)

[sup8pdct]

First thing I would do is to see what happens when you turn on the drive with the top removed and the front facing towards you.

If the head moves towards you then away again, then you have some sort of logic problem.

If it doesn't move at all, the problem is in the stepper motor area, either the 12V or the drive circutry.

If the head only moves towards towards you or bounces when very close to the disk spindle, then the problem lays in the track 0 sensor area. See if you can manually move the head (with the drive turned off to make sure it isn't stuck).

One big thing you may have picked up in the other theads is the capactors. replacing these may fix your problem.

 

james

 

 

 

Hi everyone -

I'm totally new to Atari, but recently wound up with a pair of 800XL's and a single 1050 Disk Drive that a professor of mine was about to throw away. In any case, the 800XL's both turn on and boot to BASIC just fine, and operate from there without a hitch, and they can both load cartridges without any problems. The 1050, however, acts strangely. When I turn it on, the power light comes on, and the busy light turns on too, and you can hear the drive spinning for a moment. It stops spinning and the busy light turns off after a second or two, but then, a little while later, will come back on and the disk drive starts spinning again. And then it stops again, and starts again, and keeps doing that. I've tried turning it on with and without a disk inside of the drive, and it doesn't change this behavior. When used with either of the 800XL's, before the word "Ready" comes up in BASIC, there's a noise that I think was described here as "farty", which from what I understand is an error code? What I'm trying to figure out is whether this is a problem with the SIO cable, or if something is mechanically wrong with the Drive, and if so, what I can do to fix it. Thanks a lot for your help!

[awace]

First thing I would do is to see what happens when you turn on the drive with the top removed and the front facing towards you.

If the head moves towards you then away again, then you have some sort of logic problem.

If it doesn't move at all, the problem is in the stepper motor area, either the 12V or the drive circutry.

If the head only moves towards towards you or bounces when very close to the disk spindle, then the problem lays in the track 0 sensor area. See if you can manually move the head (with the drive turned off to make sure it isn't stuck).

One big thing you may have picked up in the other theads is the capactors. replacing these may fix your problem.

 

james

 

 

 

Hi everyone -

I'm totally new to Atari, but recently wound up with a pair of 800XL's and a single 1050 Disk Drive that a professor of mine was about to throw away. In any case, the 800XL's both turn on and boot to BASIC just fine, and operate from there without a hitch, and they can both load cartridges without any problems. The 1050, however, acts strangely. When I turn it on, the power light comes on, and the busy light turns on too, and you can hear the drive spinning for a moment. It stops spinning and the busy light turns off after a second or two, but then, a little while later, will come back on and the disk drive starts spinning again. And then it stops again, and starts again, and keeps doing that. I've tried turning it on with and without a disk inside of the drive, and it doesn't change this behavior. When used with either of the 800XL's, before the word "Ready" comes up in BASIC, there's a noise that I think was described here as "farty", which from what I understand is an error code? What I'm trying to figure out is whether this is a problem with the SIO cable, or if something is mechanically wrong with the Drive, and if so, what I can do to fix it. Thanks a lot for your help!

wow mabie he just needs a disk with something on it mabie thats the problem also mabie it needs cleaned otherwise adjust the allen screw on the fly the exact opposite way its pushing.. good luck the easyst way to fix that is w frogger boot disk 800 version an autoload version of frogger.

GOOD LUCK.

I would try a known disk in a known atari drive then find a formated one boot from known working drive as drive one then switch to youre suspect disc drive then once in basic dos dos then try formating a disk more than once once it starts the format function and finnally works it seems easyer to use .

I have been known to use cassette cleaner and a que tip on the heads W OUT smacking them together w it on this usually fixes it if its an aligment problem witch i dont think it is its harder to do I was farting around w frogger autoload disk this disk you can put in and it will load up w out basic to frogger so i had problems and found the alignment to the stepper motor was going gnank shannank and i accidently pushed it farther than i thought it was trying to go the exact opposite way electoricly but it was actually reading it over and over trying to work its way to the begining of the FART like noise movment so you help it along pushing it back IN witch means rotate not the motor but the other pully the other way the smallest you can adjust w out scrwing it up moving it clock wise a teany bit will allow it to move the other way more when starting a read. this fixed my drive . I just hope you either have a dirty head or just dont have a properly formated data file quoting bender from futurama. GOOD LUCK.

[awace]

Yes - I've made sure that the drive switches are set to the left. My thinking is that something must be wrong with the drive, since even when it isn't plugged into the computer, it still continuously starts to spin, stops, and does it again ad infinitum. In other words, it doesn't really give the user a chance to insert a disk, since after the first time the busy light turns off, it turns right back on again.

sounds like bad solder points or a lose connection intermitent I have seen whole boards on ebay for those.

I guess i was reading the end of the posts and didnt see this one.

[ijor]

Yes - I've made sure that the drive switches are set to the left. My thinking is that something must be wrong with the drive, since even when it isn't plugged into the computer, it still continuously starts to spin, stops, and does it again ad infinitum. In other words, it doesn't really give the user a chance to insert a disk, since after the first time the busy light turns off, it turns right back on again.

sounds like bad solder points or a lose connection intermitent I have seen whole boards on ebay for those.

I guess i was reading the end of the posts and didnt see this one.

 

This is actually the self-test failing.

 

When the 1050 is powered on, the firmware performs a serie of internal tests. If anything fails, then it blinks the led slowly to signal the error condition to the user. The motor spins together with the led, because they are both hardwired together.

 

The problem could be anything, but James suggestion might give some hints. Start the drive with the case removed and watch what happens with the head.