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Atari 1050 "boot error"


Yannil

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I recently bought a 1050 disk drive off eBay for repair. The seller said "boot error" which is what it does.

I opened the drive and found that it had a Happy Board installed. "Happy Computers Rev B 1984"

I cleaned the head and the rails but still got the slow  "boot error" message.

I changed the mech for another that I know works but I still get the slow "boot error" message. 

 

Any suggestions would be welcome?

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I took the processor out - the power light came on but nothing else. 

I took the happy board out and put in a cpu and prom I had spare from another 1050 I had upgraded but got the same result. 

 

What is the 5 pronged connector for on the happy board?

Edited by Yannil
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13 hours ago, Yannil said:

I recently bought a 1050 disk drive off eBay for repair. The seller said "boot error" which is what it does.

I opened the drive and found that it had a Happy Board installed. "Happy Computers Rev B 1984"

I cleaned the head and the rails but still got the slow  "boot error" message.

I changed the mech for another that I know works but I still get the slow "boot error" message. 

Congrats on getting a genuine happy board. You have the earlier 6KB RAM version (3x2KB SRAM's) compared to the later ones that employed a single 8KB SRAM chip.

 

The fact you are getting "BOOT ERROR" at all means that the drive is responding to SIO commands, so you can immediately assume the 6502 CPU on the happy board is OK, and the 6810 RAM on the motherboard and 6116 SRAM on the happy is at least good enough to pass the initial power-on test.

 

Do the "BOOT ERROR" prompts repeat quickly, or a long delay between each, with indications that the drive is trying to read the disk?

 

Download "Happy Warp Speed Software V7.1 Side 1.ATR" from the following post:

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/283666-archive-of-happy-backup-software/?do=findComment&comment=4127979

Write it to a disk with your known working drive. Boot it on the Atari with the known working drive. Or simply boot that virtual disk from an SIO2PC type device set as D1: - then you can either set the happy drive as Drive 2, or when you reach the menu, disconnect the good 1050, and swap in the Happy 1050, set for drive 1, (or drive 2 with both attached) and run the diagnostics in Menu option 2. Enter drive 1 or 2 depending how you have it setup.

 

Let us know if the drive is able to pass the ROM and RAM tests.

 

If you don't have the means to get that disk image booted on your Atari, you could then proceed to try swapping the happy board into your known good drive...

 

  • Remove U10 (ROM), Remove U9 (6507 CPU), plug happy board into U9.
  • You could also try Installing the now removed U10 (ROM) and U9 (6507 CPU) into the drive that had the happy - but first you have to check that the 4 jumpers JP1/JP2/JP3/JP4 above U10 are configured the same as the source drive. A drive will either be configured with jumpers across JP2 & JP4 for EPROM configuration, or JP1 & JP3 for mask ROM configuration.

 

9 hours ago, Yannil said:

I'm guessing its the 8427

it's a 6502 CPU, and "8427" means it was manufactured in the 27th week (July 2-8) of 1984

 

3 hours ago, Yannil said:

What is the 5 pronged connector for on the happy board?

That is for the optional "Happy Controller" that provided an external three-way switch to override write-protect, and another switch to enable/disable the track buffer. Most (probably all) happy clone boards never included it on their PCB's. I acquired a drive with one and replaced a broken switch on it, of which I wrote about and posted photos here:

 

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20 hours ago, Nezgar said:

Do the "BOOT ERROR" prompts repeat quickly, or a long delay between each, with indications that the drive is trying to read the disk?

The "BOOT ERROR" prompts have a long delay between each.

 

I loaded "Happy Warp Speed Software V7.1" from my good drive and tested the boot error drive as disk 2.

 

Now then:-

It passed RAM test #1, RAM test #2 and the ROM test.

It passed the high speed transfer test

The RPM test gave a reading of 288.0 and 289.5 which was "just fine"

It didn't pass the R/W test

Using the head positioning I could move the head forward and backward.

 

Edited by Yannil
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  • 4 months later...
On 7/11/2020 at 3:28 PM, Yannil said:

Hi,

I did get the drive speed adjusted to 288/minute. I didn't swap the FDC chip on this drive, but its something I will try. 

Thanks for the suggestions.

The FDC is calibrated to the PCB it is installed in, installing a different FDC will likely require recalibration.

 

Edited by BillC
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