nevets01

Another question: can I reformat disks of other formats to work in my 810? Say I had some IBM-formatted diskettes that I wanted to use, or some of those "double" density disks, and I didn't care about what was on them?

Fixed! woohoo! I put a pad of e-tape under the other side of the spring, and bent the head-side down a bit, to get greater springy force, and it read! Tried a bunch of disks, most worked, a couple didn't (one of which turned out to be doubledensity). Curiously, about half the disks are doubledensity with no sign of a 1050. There's one on shopoodwill I've got my eye on though, unless it gets bid way up. However, I still like this 810 better, if only because it matches the 800 better.

So I lifted up the metal shield and everything looked fine. I don't have any other disk drives or anything (other than some half-height 5.25" drives like what would be in a newer DOS machine; I doubt any parts are compatible) with which I may swap parts. However, I did come across a major breakthrough. Right before I went to bed, I tried loading a floppy with the cover off, and pressing down gently on the top head thingy. There was a series of bips, but after that I must have instinctively let up on it since there was nothing else. Mildly discouraged, I opened the drive and removed the disk, only to look up to see "MISSION: Asteroid, Game load in progress, please wait..." had been displayed on the screen. So... something's working! It was pretty late though, so I stopped after that. More experimentation to come, possibly to-night. As for the printer (VIC-1521), it's not got a centronics port, it's one of those ports that's the Commodore version of SIO

Okay, so I reseated all the pins and things that you highlighted. No go. Even made sure they were all hooked in the right way round, in case some doofus got them backwards. No mods, as far as I can tell. No extra wires or boards. Sure enough the board above the drive mechanism says "Analog BD". The sideboard says it's revision A. I devised a method to measure speed, primitive as it is: I marked a mark on the flywheel and filmed some video of it spinning, then compared timestamps before and after 10 rotations. Some maths gave me the number 4.76 rotations per second, or 285 rpm, within margin of error of the intended 288 rpm, so it's not the speed, I don't think. I also noticed that when attempting to load a program, there wasn't any noise. When I loaded anything from my floppy emulator, the computer would make constant beepy noises, however, when using the actual drive, all I got was a singular boop when the drive head re-zeroes. Perhaps this is significant? What it seems like to me is that the drive is not seeing/depositing anything on the disks, either that or it's not telling the computer anything about what it's reading. IDK though, I'm a bit of a noob at all this...

I tried all the disks in the box that said "For 810" or "single density", none of them worked. I took the drive apart, but couldn't find any edge connectors, only pins (all of which I reseated, but to no avail). Could you clarify?

They do. I check each disk for scratches along the entire circumference, which necessitates at least one complete rotation. Unfortunately, I do not have access to either a 1050 or any new disks (though some of the ones in that box appear blank, including the one I attempted to format). I've tried it with various disks in that box, and none of them seem to work. The bizarre thing is that there was an 800XL in the box as well as the 800 (idk if it works, haven't tried it yet since it seems like a rehash of the 800 with a bit more ram), and upon closer inspection, several of those disks were doubledensity -- but several were not, and there was no sign of a 1050 in the box (oddly enough, there was a commodore printer in there too... I still have yet to figure that out). Later tonight I'll do some more extensive checking if I have time. I checked, and yes, the sideboard does have a "C" sticker

So I was given three boxes of old Atari stuff from a friend who had a too-cluttered attic. I've got an 800 and an 810, and the 800 works beautifully (except for that horrid RF out. I'll eventually get an S-video or RGB mod/cable), however the 810 appears to not. What I've got - condition Atari 800 - completely functional Atari 810 - nonfunctional, will not write or read diskettes homebrew SIO2PI cable - verified to work with several disk images box (one of those plastic disk rolodexes) of Atari 5.25" disks - functionality not known, they appear perfectly fine (i.e. media isn't scratched/scratching off under the drive head). What I've tried - result: booting from diskette officially labeled as Atari Dos 2.5 - drive goes "BRRRRTrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrBRRRRRTrrrrrrrrrrr", 800 shows a string of "BOOT ERROR"s which accumulate with frequency approximately equal to that of the BRRRRTs from the drive, which occurs every 10-15 seconds cleaning head with isopropyl alchohol and piece of facial tissue - no result booting from diskette hand-labeled "Master diskette" - drive goes "BRRRRTrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr", 800 shows a somewhat faster string of "BOOT ERROR"s. booting atari dos from SIO2PI - works as expected booting with a game from SIO2PI - M.U.L.E. theme is now stuck in my head. formatting diskette- drive goes "BRRRRTrrrrrrrrrr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" and remains spinning for between 30 and 60 minutes (I had left the room at around 30, and came back around 60). Eventually it stops, and DOS gives error 173 ("BAD FORMAT") I disassembled it to make sure everything was doing what it should, and everything looked in order. Belts were tight, no debris or other obvious problems, head went back and forth like it should. Is there anything I'm missing? (other than speed; I have no way of measuring drive speed and from what I've gathered, it shouldn't effect formatting or disks formatted by that drive)