Impulse buys

[Opry99er]

I tend to make impulse buys of things when I have a few extra dollars. I'm sure most of you have done that at one time or another in your lives as well, given the nature of our hobby.

 

Never heard of this brand before, But got a pretty sweet deal on a case of 5.25 floppy disks, sealed. 10 packs of 10.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope they work out...

Edited April 17, 2017 by Opry99er

[+Schmitzi]

Maybe it is a problem (other thread) that they are preformatted for PC ?

(But I really don´t know about, and maybe only problems are given between 40 and 80 tracks, if pre-formatted)

 

YOU ´never heard of this Brand before´ ??

[mizapf]

No, the tracks on (soft sectored) floppy disks are physically unstructured, so you can write any pattern on it, just like a magnetic tape. The only thing to watch out is that they are not HD disks.

[Opry99er]

Interesting... My disks arrived.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every disk shows as "Write Protected" in DM2 and DM1000.

 

 

Not sure why exactly... There is no tape over the notch.

 

Could it be a hard-sector disk? The listing said it could be reformatted for Apple, Commodore, etc.

[Opry99er]

Only one index hole... seems like a soft sectored disk to me... physically the exact same as my working TI floppies... the media surface is pristine on these as well... glossy and flawless.

[sometimes99er]

Try these instead.

 

 

[Opry99er]

[mizapf]

Every disk shows as "Write Protected" in DM2 and DM1000.

 

Not sure why exactly... There is no tape over the notch.

 

This should not happen (yes, the least helpful comment that came to my mind ... )

 

But indeed, write protection is hardware-based; there is a contact on the side, maybe a light sensor, and there is a separate line on the Shugart bus leading to the disk controller. That is, there is normally no way to prevent or produce that situation deliberately via software or via data on the disk. Maybe you could check with a working floppy disk whether there is something wrong with that notch (not a the right position, bad shape, whatever ...).

[Opry99er]

Yes, the floppies are identical. From the anti-bend notches by the media window to the write prot3ct notch. The index hole is in the same place and it is precisely the same size. If you lay one on top of the other, they match up flawlessly.

 

I have never experienced this before.

[Opry99er]

So I tried reading from and saving to a known good disk and had no issues.

 

I guess the next step is to try to reformat a known good disk to see what happens.

[Opry99er]

It could be that pin 36 is erroneously set to "low" for one reason or another. But if that is the case, I should not be able to save an XB program to disk, correct?

 

I'll try to go down and give it a try again later...

 

Any other ideas for testing would be much appreciated.

[+Schmitzi]

From my side, no more ideas at this moment. I think your (old) hardware problem still exists, or a part of that problem

If shipping wouldn´t be so expensive I would send u a pile of stuff for more testing/comparing.

I really hope you´re going to find something small problem.

Can you point me back to the original thread(s) for that problem, I cannot find it here in the forum.

[Opry99er]

From my side, no more ideas at this moment. I think your (old) hardware problem still exists, or a part of that problem

If shipping wouldn´t be so expensive I would send u a pile of stuff for more testing/comparing.

I really hope you´re going to find something small problem.

Can you point me back to the original thread(s) for that problem, I cannot find it here in the forum.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/245337-more-disk-issues/page-1

[Opry99er]

It seems more has happened.

 

I tried to reformat a known good/working disk. It did not go well.

 

 

 

 

I then tried to format one of the new disks again and it went even worse.

 

 

 

So... I am guessing I need a deep cleaning or maybe a new drive entirely...

[Opry99er]

Took the drive apart and cleaned the head... it had some junk on it.

 

 

 

Once put back in, it reads fine, but now considers all drives to be Write Protected. I looked at the Write protection mechanism, and it seems to be in working order. The switch clicks properly when the tab pops up into the notch.

 

 

 

I followed the brown and black wires back to the edge connector that attaches to the PCB. All looks to be in order.

 

The felt pad on the top arm seems to be a bit tattered... if I remember correctly, it was very tight and firm last time I was in this drive. Not sure if that would have anything to do with anything.

[+Schmitzi]

just desperate: maybe the cable itself, or yes, the drive....

maybe move the controller one slot over....

[Opry99er]

Something wrong with the drive or cable. I can format, read, and write to DSK2 and 3... when Intry to write to DSK1, I get this...

 

 

 

When I try to format a disk in DSK1, I get this:

 

[+Schmitzi]

So if you jumper your DSK1-drive to DSK2 (or 3), this drive suddenly runs ?

[Flottmann1]

With me it occurred after about 50 Disks when creating images on, no more Discs were read

probably abrasion

After use of a cleaning Disc it works again

[Opry99er]

Hey schmitzi,

 

What I meant to say is that my 3.5" drives have no issues at all with any disk or file functions. The 5.25 will not do anything useful currently.

 

I don't have the ability to set up my 5.25 as DSK2 due to cabling and configuration limitations.

[+Schmitzi]

ah OK, I just thought: Dismount all drives except the 5.25"er, and jumper it to DSK2 (or 3), to see if it works.

AND, vice versa, connect your 3.5" (also alone!) as DSK1 to see if this works.

 

Then you exactly know wether your 5.25"er ist defective, and what controller and cable "say", in general.

[marc.hull]

Hey schmitzi,

 

What I meant to say is that my 3.5" drives have no issues at all with any disk or file functions. The 5.25 will not do anything useful currently.

 

I don't have the ability to set up my 5.25 as DSK2 due to cabling and configuration limitations.

Does your 5.25 drive have termination set up correctly ?

[Opry99er]

I believe so, Marc. Earlier this week I was formatting, saving, and loading programs to/from the 5.25 drive. I was copying ToD games from the 5.25 to the 3.5 with no issues.

 

I have not changed anything in my configuration since then.

[marc.hull]

If your 5.25 is full height i would pull it and take a picture of the shunt pack and post it with the make/model of drive.

[Opry99er]

10-4.

 

Currently the top two on the pack are jumpers. None others.

 

It is a Shugart 400.