Disk drive troubles

[djglish]

I've been checking out my 8-bit disk drives and two out of the five aren't working properly.

 

The 1050 drive gives a "boot error" running down the screen.  The disk is good since it works in the other drives.

 

The XF551 powers on but doesn't do anything when the computer is turned on.  No drive activity.  The other XF551 works without a problem.  The first one does have an after market upgrade in it.  Not sure what it is anymore.  There is a really small switch on the back.  I'll have to look through my documentation and see if I can remember what it is.

 

Any thoughts would be helpful

[manterola]

I was about to ask you to check the switches on the back. those are for Drive select. Make sure you set the switches to D1: if you want the drive to boot.

 

[TZJB]

12 hours ago, djglish said:

I've been checking out my 8-bit disk drives and two out of the five aren't working properly.

 

The 1050 drive gives a "boot error" running down the screen.  The disk is good since it works in the other drives.

 

The XF551 powers on but doesn't do anything when the computer is turned on.  No drive activity.  The other XF551 works without a problem.  The first one does have an after market upgrade in it.  Not sure what it is anymore.  There is a really small switch on the back.  I'll have to look through my documentation and see if I can remember what it is.

 

Any thoughts would be helpful

 

Is the device ID set to D1:? Is the power light on and does the head seek to track 0 when the power is applied? Also does the disk spin?

 

SIO seems to be communicating if you are receiving "boot error". How is the disk formatted? If it's a double density formatted disk, a standard disk drive may not read it but from what you have said it may be modified?

 

The switch at the back of the 1050 drive that you mentioned may be a drive reset switch? Is it a push switch?

 

As always pictures would help immensely.

[Rybags]

Small switch might be write protect override.

Drive reset - I don't see the point, the firmware is pretty solid and ejecting/inserting a disk should be sufficient to "reset" the drive.

 

[TZJB]

3 minutes ago, Rybags said:

Small switch might be write protect override.

Drive reset - I don't see the point, the firmware is pretty solid and ejecting/inserting a disk should be sufficient to "reset" the drive.

 

 

Just guessing at this point but I tend to agree as I have never seen the need for a drive reset switch. However if the drive is programmable then a reset switch would retore the defaults as would a power cycle. For a 1050 disk drive I also put extra switches on the front as there is a lot of space.

[+nasty niff]

on the xf551 check sio ports aren't lose on the motherboard, 1050 are the heads clean?

[Beeblebrox]

18 hours ago, djglish said:

I've been checking out my 8-bit disk drives and two out of the five aren't working properly.

 

The 1050 drive gives a "boot error" running down the screen.  The disk is good since it works in the other drives.

 

The XF551 powers on but doesn't do anything when the computer is turned on.  No drive activity.  The other XF551 works without a problem.  The first one does have an after market upgrade in it.  Not sure what it is anymore.  There is a really small switch on the back.  I'll have to look through my documentation and see if I can remember what it is.

 

Any thoughts would be helpful

Clean the drive head with isopropyl alcohol or contact cleaner ad cotton buds/cue tips. Worth a try. I've had the same error before and sometimes it just down to a dirty read/write head.

[djglish]

The switch is on the back of the XF551 drive.  Didn't think to double check that the drive was set to D1.  It was the second drive when I was using them full-time (guess I really am getting old).  I'm guessing that the switch is for some type of duplicator upgrade.

 

I'll try cleaning the heads on the 1050 drive.  Won't be able to do it for a few days, heading out of town.  

 

My first drive was a Rana 1000.  It finally bit the dust.  It was a great little unit

[djglish]

Good news on the XF551 front.  It indeed was set to drive 2.  Moving it to drive 1 did the trick and it starts up and reads fine.  

The 1050 looks to just need a good cleaning of the rails.  The spindle spins up, but the rail makes a real grinding sound when trying to move up and down.

I have some Isopropyl alcohol to clean the rails and the head.  What is the best type of grease to lubricate them after cleaning?

 

 

[Beeblebrox]

Few tips in this thread. 

 

[djglish]

Thanks for the link.  It looks like I should be good after cleaning the rails and the heads.

I will get some Silicone grease to put on the rails.

This drive apparently has a Duplicating Technologies Duplicator upgrade in it.  I found the documentation.

 

Still not sure which upgrade the XF551 has.  I'll open it up this next week and see what I can find.

Now that it is set to drive 1 it's reading fine.

[djglish]

Well I popped the top on the XF551 and took some pictures of the upgrade.  

If anyone can identify it I that would be a great help.

 

 

[+kheller2]

That looks like an official CSS upgrade. 

[TZJB]

11 hours ago, djglish said:

Well I popped the top on the XF551 and took some pictures of the upgrade.  

If anyone can identify it I that would be a great help.

 

 

 

It does look like a CSS Enhancer.

 

You mentioned that you may have one 3 years ago here:

 

 

The switch allows the use of flippy disks from what I can gather. It may be time to label the switch positions?

[djglish]

yep, that was me 3 years ago.  Guess I really am getting senile.  

 

[djglish]

Cleaned the head and rails on the 1050 and used silicone grease on the rails.  It still didn't work.  I was getting ready to give up and then noticed that the switch on the top left side of the drivee (the one that gets depressed when the bar is closed across the disc opening) was lying loose.  Not sure how that happened, but when I reseated it the drive works.  Can't find the screw that holds it in place but picked on up at the hardware store.

 

I now have 5 of 5 working drives

[TZJB]

11 hours ago, djglish said:

Cleaned the head and rails on the 1050 and used silicone grease on the rails.  It still didn't work.  I was getting ready to give up and then noticed that the switch on the top left side of the drivee (the one that gets depressed when the bar is closed across the disc opening) was lying loose.  Not sure how that happened, but when I reseated it the drive works.  Can't find the screw that holds it in place but picked on up at the hardware store.

 

I now have 5 of 5 working drives

 

That's really great. Glad you have working drives now. It's a good feeling when something works properly once again. I expect the 1050 is running much quieter now?

[djglish]

It is much quieter and it reads really quickly with the Duplicator chip in it.