Defective Commodore VC1541 II and related

[Retrofan]

Hi:
I've just bought this two minutes ago: http://www.ebay.es/itm/190973803771?...84.m1439.l2649

It says (Google translation) "Unfortunately, the floppy will not load disks, therefore selling as DEFECTIVE! It can be turned on and is of the sounds also produce normal, but does not load!. ... Warranty seal is intact!"

What should I do/check, please?

Edit: From Wikipedia: "The hardware is considered to be extremely robust and less prone to failure than other Commodore floppy stations."

Also... Where can I get the instructions manual?

[jolly11]

http://personalpages.tds.net/~rcarls...II/1541-II.txt

[Retrofan]

Thanks a lot. Those guides are great. I think I will start just using a 5 1/4 cleaning disk kit I've got.

Edit: I've got also some questions about how to make new 5 1/4 floppys. I have some I made with my old pentium (now dead), but now I would like to be able to make the same using USB. I've seen some cables, which do you recommend me to use and how? -I've forgotten-.

[john1979]

The modern way to interface with it is via a ZoomFloppy

http://store.go4retro.com/zoomfloppy/

You will need the standard iec cable for your drive and a usb cable.

The older way was to use a parrallel to iec cable and opencbm drivers with Windows XP. This is the way I do it because it is cheap and I have still have a parallel port.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/XM1541-MUL...-/390318592120

In either case I believe opencbm is the best way to talk to it. There are some frontends but I prefer the command line for simplicity i.e. "d64copy thelastninja.d64 8" gets the job done for writing d64 images.

From the sounds of it, that drive may just need re-aligning or cleaning. If you're lucky it could be a bargain for a working drive.

On the other hand it could be right PITA to fix if one of the chips is gone. Also check the voltages on the PSU as they are known to be failure points.

[Retrofan]

Thanks. Yep, I was also using a parallel port on my Pc and that was simple and cheap -I was printing my own covers for the floppys even-, but you're true; now with USB, Zoomfloppy is the way to go.

... I will report if I get this drive working.

[lukassid]

Usually it's the faulty Power Supply with this units. You need to join lemon 64 there is plenty threads about these drives. I found them (1541-ii) much better than original 1541 as heads not going out of alignment as easy, but there might be various failings as these are old machines.

[Retrofan]

Hehehe. Just to tell that I've first cleaned it with IPA but nothing. Later after opening I've finally found it had the rubber belt loose at the bottom, so I've dismounted it and the belt was intact, just out, on the floor...

Now my new 1541-II is working flawesly.

Ah... I taked out the Warranty Seal with hot air from the hairdryer, so I have it intact.

[Turran]

Hahha excellent. Nice work. I bought a non working 1541 a few weeks back as well. I just cleaned it up real nice and IPA on the head. Working just fine =)

[Retrofan]

Hehe. Excellent mate. As everybody can see these units are heavy weights, all metal like a tank, and difficult to destroy.

[demolition]

For anyone wanting to write floppy disks to a 1541 but does not have a Zoomfloppy or a PC with a parallel port, there is also the Easy1541 cable which will connect the drive with an Amiga:
http://sta.c64.org/easy1541.html

I'm sure that most people in here have a working Amiga, so it can be a cheap solution if you are able to put the cable together yourself.
I made one and it is working fine with my A1200, although the speed is quite slow. It takes almost 10 minutes to write a single d64 image, so it is much faster with the Zoomfloppy which can do the same in less than 30 seconds.

[Retrofan]

Is that the same parallel cable that was used between the Pc and the C=? Because I still have one.

[demolition]

No, they're probably a bit different. Also, there's many different cable types for a PC link (X1541, XE1541, XM1541, XA1541 etc).
But your PC cable can probably be modified into an Easy1541 cable without too much hassle.

[amigasith]

Hi guys,

as demolition said there are many versions of the X1541 transfer cable for PCs. You can read about their differences here: http://sta.c64.org/xcables.html

I bought an XM1541 from a German ebay shop (http://www.ebay.de/itm/XM1541-Datent...item3cda6aea14) and use "Star Commander" (http://sta.c64.org/sc.html) on MS-DOS (yes, DOS not Windows ). It is working beautifully! And really fast also. Long live Last Ninja 2

Cheers!

[Retrofan]

If I buy an SD2IEC I suposse I will be able to make copys to a real floppy (not sure what commands). Will it take also 10 minutes? At least I won't have to use another computer.

Anyway USB seems the best if you don't have a parallel port on the Pc.

[demolition]

I don't have an SD2IEC, but I guess you should be able to connect it to the back of your 1541 drive and use a regular disk copying program on the 64. Speed copiers will probably not work though since they upload a custom program to both drives to speed up the copy process. Since SD2IEC support some speed loaders, it might work with some, e.g. the Action Replay cart?

Anyway, it should still be faster than 10 minutes since I think the 64 should be able to read an entire disk faster than that using the standard CBM DOS.

[stevsurv]

Nice to hear that cleaning the heads fixed it. Back in the 80's all those drives were quality made and fairly robust! Unlike the crap thats made these days.