Rybags Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 I've got 2 x stock 1050s, both have had near perfect behaviour always, only needing a head clean once in a while (open up, swab with isopropyl). Today I've used them for the first time in probably 3 years, maybe a bit longer. I managed to get a directory on one of them after a few failed read attempts on other floppies, subsequent attempts fail. Tried various disks, likely they are all good. Most kept in my bedroom, generally never high humidity but sometimes low and high temperatures. But the drives, seem to spin up fine and the seeking seems normal also. But any attempt at a disk read gets the seek 0/reseek/retry thing and the usual Error 144. Even formatting fails - it does the high speed write and head step every ~ 1.5 seconds but the format fails eventually after retrying a couple of times. Visual inspection inside - the heads on one looked a bit dirty and both came up fine. Very slight bulge on the big caps on one drive. Each drive has a different mech by the looks - one has the felt pad that barely seperates off the head and the other has the one that can open up beyond 90 degrees. I've only got the single PS that I've used on both - though I guess I could try a 400 PS though I think it might be underrated for the task? But back to the issue - any ideas? Speed, track 0 sensor, alignment? Something else? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilheim Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 Have you tried using the Atari 1050 diagnostic disk? What does it say? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 3, 2021 Author Share Posted February 3, 2021 No. The drives behave otherwise normally (power up, seek when reading etc) but every read attempt has failed aside from that directory attempt earlier. I'll see if I can DL it and boot from SIO2SD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 13 minutes ago, Rybags said: the other has the one that can open up beyond 90 degrees. This sounds like a WST mech - does the bottom drive label say "made in Hong Kong" ? And a stock drive would have a 2732 EPROM labelled "WSTR5" . The other is probably a tandon/made in singapore drive. Check voltages at various stages in the power circuit. ~9V AC from the PSU, +5 V DC coming out of the 7805 regulator, about 18V DC going into the 7812 regulator, 12V DC coming out. Seems odd both would suffer the same problem at the same time... if your 9VAC PSU is shot, it should show an undervoltage when the motor is spinning, maybe causing a too-low RPM to read successfully. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 3, 2021 Author Share Posted February 3, 2021 No go with the diag disk - you have to have it on actual physical media to work it would seem. I'll see what I can do about getting some voltage readings - starting to suspect the PS as it seems unlikely both drives would fail with the same problem at the same time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 2 minutes ago, Nezgar said: Seems odd both would suffer the same problem at the same time... if your 9VAC PSU is shot, it should show an undervoltage when the motor is spinning, maybe causing a too-low RPM to read successfully. what about the computer itself? sio port? sio cables? unless it's just "one of those freak occurrences" and was nothing more than coincidence? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 3, 2021 Author Share Posted February 3, 2021 About 9.1 V AC coming from the PSU. The 7812 seems normal with about 19.9 in and a little over 12 out. But the 7805... about 9.9 in and only 4.8 coming out - I assume using the screw that attaches it to the heatsinking point is OK as a ground point? Computer itself is fine - it boots up via SIO2SD as D1: and the 1050s are set to other IDs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 3, 2021 Author Share Posted February 3, 2021 Other drive (with restricted pad movement and track zero sensor clearly accessable) - the volt readings are more normal with 19.5 / 12 on one and 9.8 / 5 on the other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mazzspeed Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 (edited) Are you sure it's not your disks? I had a problem with two 1541's suddenly failing at the same time, the only thing common was the disks I was using. It turns out that the disks were magnetizing the heads and after about an hour of doing nothing the drives would begin working fine again with newer known good disks. Inspecting the heads they looked fine with no build up of magnetic material and cleaning the heads did nothing to rectify the problem. The only thing that worked was waiting about an hour, then they worked fine again with newer good disks. A soon as I inserted the old disks, the problem repeated. Edited February 3, 2021 by Mazzspeed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 3, 2021 Author Share Posted February 3, 2021 Can't say I've heard of such a thing. I'll try leaving it but not holding high hopes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mazzspeed Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 (edited) 23 minutes ago, Rybags said: Can't say I've heard of such a thing. I'll try leaving it but not holding high hopes. I hadn't either until I experienced it, had me stuffed as the heads were spotless and cleaning them did nothing at all - I thought I'd stuffed both drives until they suddenly started reading again using alternate media. Now I can replicate the issue over and over again. Although I don't as I'm sure it's not good for the drives. My disks were also stored in a location of high humidity but kept in one of those lockable disk storage containers. You know audio heads on tape decks needed demagnetizing at times back in the day? Edited February 3, 2021 by Mazzspeed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xrbrevin Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 (edited) here be the 1050 diagnostic .atr file 1050 Disk Diagnostics.atr connect and set 1050 to D1. insert any dos disk but power it off boot the .atr from Aspeqt (or similar) disable Aspeqt and power up the 1050 run the tests Edited February 3, 2021 by xrbrevin guidance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilheim Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 2 hours ago, Rybags said: No go with the diag disk - you have to have it on actual physical media to work it would seem. I'll see what I can do about getting some voltage readings - starting to suspect the PS as it seems unlikely both drives would fail with the same problem at the same time. I could boot the disk using a sio2pc and then taking it off and replace it with the 1050 drive in d1: Tested with APE and Respeqt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 3, 2021 Author Share Posted February 3, 2021 OK - booted diags then did the drive swap. Motor Start test fails as does Motor Speed "TO HIGH" and fail for Step/Settle and Track 00 sensor test. Running Track 00 sensor test via option 2 passes though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 Hi there Ry, Sorry to hear about both going, you have the best guys helping out, hope you get sorted.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 3, 2021 Author Share Posted February 3, 2021 On both drives - motor start test seems to do a seek without the drive spinning but then starts spinning a couple of seconds later (and still fails) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilheim Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 6 minutes ago, Rybags said: OK - booted diags then did the drive swap. Motor Start test fails as does Motor Speed "TO HIGH" and fail for Step/Settle and Track 00 sensor test. Running Track 00 sensor test via option 2 passes though. Now go to Troubleshooting and perform a drive speed test. If there’s a different value as the accepted one you can adjust the motor speed on the electronic piece with a small flat screwdriver at the top left side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xrbrevin Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 10 minutes ago, Rybags said: Motor Speed "TO HIGH" if the drive is unmodded then its worth recalibrating the RPM for info, modded drives can give false readings Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilheim Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 Just now, Rybags said: On both drives - motor start test seems to do a seek without the drive spinning but then starts spinning a couple of seconds later (and still fails) Are you using a blank formatted disk for this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xrbrevin Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 ive had drives fail the stop/start test and the stepper test but they still load disks ok sure its nice when the drive passes all diags but i find that the main ones that stop disks loading are the RPM and zero sensor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 3, 2021 Author Share Posted February 3, 2021 (edited) I was using an ED disk that has games on it (and doesn't matter if it gets wiped). I have no such luxury of fresh formatted disk or a known unformatted one thanks to not having any operational drives. The motor speed test just sat there and returned nothing. Edited February 3, 2021 by Rybags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xrbrevin Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 if i recall it should spin the disk motor but im not sure maybe it also does a stepper 'chug' periodically.. ? the rpm is displayed real time allowing you to adjust the blue trimpot i will dig out one of mine later on and remind myself Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 The 1050 diag tests should be done on using a single density disk. Also run the RPM test separately and tell us what number it's actually reporting - "too high" may be the same as can't read... but it has to be able to consistently read 1 sector for a meaningful answer. Could be worth trying adjusting the RPM tripod and re-running the rpm test to see if it makes any improvement (make note of how many turns each way so you can roughly undo your changes if no improvement in reads) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 3, 2021 Author Share Posted February 3, 2021 The RPM test I was using is the speed test under main menu option 2. I feel it's not working because the both drives won't even read a sector for whatever reason. Another thought I had is to try and use a PC power supply, has anyone tried that before? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 7 minutes ago, Rybags said: Another thought I had is to try and use a PC power supply, has anyone tried that before? 1050 is 9VAC, you can't use a PC PSU as all outputs are DC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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