scottishlass3

Thanks for all your suggestions guys :-) Sorry for the lack of response, I was working overtime and shattered lol. The eBay seller has accepted my return request - unfortunately I did this before receiving all of your responses. However, I have not ruled out getting another Atari ST, and will follow your helpful advice if/when I do. If/when I get another one, I will keep you guys posted on what happens. The model was a 520 ST FM, the original Discovery Pack with a disk drive built in on the right hand side :-) Cheers

Thanks for that Anzac. I am happy to spend money on getting the drive cleaned, but not sure how to go about it, e.g. what materials to use. As long as the price won't burn a hole in my pocket lol. You're right - the Atari was cheap, £18.00 plus postage of just over £10, no problem there. I've only ever bought a computer with a disk drive once before, and that was an Amiga in the early 2000s. I never had any problem with that - either because it was circa 15 years younger than it would be today, or because I got lucky lol. I used to own a bulky PC, but that had a totally different kind of disk drive, plus it was given as a present by kind friends who had spare computers at work that their boss was happy to let them give away. Also I was more accustomed to that kind of computer and have PC-literate friends who were there to give me a hand should any problems arise :-) I probably was too optimistic like you said, but if I see anything like "untested", " unsure if it works", "for spares or repair" etc, I generally don't buy the item as I'm not so good at fixing technical stuff. This looks like a good forum to me, and I appreciate all the support in advance :-)

Sorry if this has been brought up before, but I am quite a novice on the Atari ST and disk drives in general. I bought an Atari 520ST from EBay which arrived yesterday. The computer powers up fine and connects well to my TV. But I have tried loading a few different disks to no avail. I have followed the instructions in the handbook and have also double-checked online, but keep getting the message that the disk drive is not responding. When the computer was up for sale, there were photos to show it powering up and the screen display, which is fine as it was just the same when I set it up :-) But there was nothing to say anything was untested or not working,e.g. the disk drive. I am happy to invest in cleaning materials, a new disk drive or whatever is needed to rectify the problem, as long as it isn't too costly or complicated as I'll need some guidance and assistance and don't have a huge budget. Can anyone help/point me in the right direction? Also, I emailed the seller explaining the problem, and they told me they're not an expert and that the computer/disk drive was displayed correctly as shown in their pictures. I replied to say that that wasn't the problem, and even sent them a photo of the error message, but they haven't replied. I don't like confrontations and don't want to forward to eBay as a dispute, but think I should get partial compensation for this...if I knew the disk drive was untested I may not have bought the item :-/