Disk Drive Won't Write

[Tempest]

Over the weekend at MGC I found out that while my ADAM disk drive happily reads disks, it won't actually write to them. I was told that this might be due to a bad photo-optic cell in the drive. Is this something that is easy to fix? How would I go about doing this? My electronics and soldering skills are average at best.

 

Tempest

[the.golden.ax]

I'd really like to know how the internals differ from any other common 5 1/4 drive.

 

AX

[NIAD]

I hated telling you this bit of bad news at MGC. Unfortunately I don't have a solution beside raiding another drive for the photo-electronic (optic) cell. I had the same problem back in 1986 and checked numerous electronics stores to no avail... I probably didn't know what I was talking about back then and the people I was asking didn't know squat as well. I eventually had this drive converted to a 3 1/2" 720K and the problem was solved.

 

The quick and dirty solution that I used back then was to pull the "cell" and then everytime I wanted to write to a disk, shine a flashlight into the hole where the "cell" used to be. The "cell" you are looking for is on the left track (just above where the disk inserts in the groove/guide) at the front of the drive... basically where the notch in the disk lines up. Then, of course, you would have to leave the cover unscrewed so that it could be removed when writing to a disk.

 

Bob S. (adamcomputer) on here would be a good person to ask if he has any of these "cells" available. Here is his website to leave him an email as well:

 

http://ann.hollowdreams.com

 

BTW, the ADAM Disk Drive was developed by MPI Technologies.

Edited March 29, 2011 by NIAD

[+evg2000]

no expert, but I'm guessing the cell checks to see if the disk is write protected. If a flashlight worked, couldn't you maybe mount a clear led that if that would shine a light straight down and if the disk was write protected it would block he light and if not protected the light would shine through? or could you wire a switch into the receiving side to either open or close the circuit as needed? any adam DD schematics out there to look at?

[NIAD]

no expert, but I'm guessing the cell checks to see if the disk is write protected. If a flashlight worked, couldn't you maybe mount a clear led that if that would shine a light straight down and if the disk was write protected it would block he light and if not protected the light would shine through? or could you wire a switch into the receiving side to either open or close the circuit as needed? any adam DD schematics out there to look at?

In theory, you should be able to raid any disk drive for the cell as they should all have a similar setup. The sure fire fix would be to raid another ADAM Disk Drive that has something else malfunctioning. The cell is inserted into a hole in the track/rail, glued and has two pins that a connector slides onto so it should be easy enough to replace once a replacement is found.

 

Before spending time searching for a replacement, the old "cell" should be removed and then a test should be done by attempting to write to a disk with a flashlight shining down the hole to make sure the sensor underneath is working. If the test is successful, then it should be a real easy fix and not require a switch be installed to bypass the cell and sensor. If the test fails, then there is more going on with the drive and someone with the technical know-how whould have to take a look at it.

 

BTW, Tempest, a little trick you can use to stop the Disk Drive or even Data Drive while they are in operation is to press the "CARTRIDGE RESET". It takes up to 10 seconds sometimes for the drive to stop, but at least you are not opening/releasing the Disk Drive latch while the drive is in operation.