Floppy drive suddenly ill

rare_j · 19 April 2005, 13:29

The day before I recieve my IDE buffered interface, and I'm all excited, the FDD on my A1200 is suddenly playing up. When I switch the Amiga on, the floppy drive makes all the correct clicking noises it has for the last decade or so. When I insert a bootable floppy the whirring noise starts but nothing happens, the floppy insert screen comes back up as if the disk isnt bootable. (The floppys I'm trying are not knackered.)

When booting from the HDD to workbench I insert a floppy and it comes up as DF0????? (and PC0:NDOS); when I remove the floppy DF0????? stays on the workbench rather than disappearing.

I'm resigned to the fact I've got to find another FDD, but is it possible one of you recognises this fault as easily fixable?

Martin_L · 19 April 2005, 16:15

maybe its just dirty

Amiga1992 · 19 April 2005, 16:26

Your floppy drive is buggered, not dirty. if dirty, it would just read wrongly, but if it stays all thetime at DFO;????? then it's buggered.

Sorry

_ThEcRoW · 19 April 2005, 16:58

Definitely your drive is dirty. i had the same problem with mine on my 500.
Just took the case apart, cleaned the drive heads with alcohol and worked again perfectly.

Smiley · 19 April 2005, 18:34

I had the same problem, my A600 is a bit of a mess :-(

rare_j · 19 April 2005, 19:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by _ThEcRoW

Definitely your drive is dirty. i had the same problem with mine on my 500.
Just took the case apart, cleaned the drive heads with alcohol and worked again perfectly.

I took the top off and gave the heads a solid rub with a cloth dampened with alcahol cleaner. No joy unfortunatly; luckily I have an external drive in storage somewhere, looks like no DF0: for me

It's a right pain as it's making all the right noises, just refusing to read or format disks. Bizarre.

Amiga1992 · 19 April 2005, 21:34

The drive is NOT dirty as I said, otherwise it OWULDN'T remain as DF0:???? after ejecting the disk.

I bet you that it's not making the right noises.
When you insert it, it does "clack, clack, clack, clack"... and then nothing. Does it do that?

DF0:???? + four clack noises when inserting disks, = buggered drive.

Overdoc · 20 April 2005, 00:18

Could be a misaligned upper head caused by a sticky disk or simply done out of alignment with age.
Can be realigned, but needs a lot of patience and skill !

Jope · 20 April 2005, 06:29

Could be a broken diskchange sensor too, but the symptoms don't quite match..

rare_j · 20 April 2005, 14:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Could be a misaligned upper head caused by a sticky disk or simply done out of alignment with age.
Can be realigned, but needs a lot of patience and skill !

What's this about misaligned heads? what do I need to look at?

Akira: yes it does the four clacks of death and spins for ages. When it stops spinning eventually I eject the disk and DF0:???? disappears from the WB as it should.

rare_j · 20 April 2005, 16:25

If you take the top off the drive, on one side of the head mountings there's what looks like a big screw that is supposed to move the heads up and down the disk surface. It's a TEAC FD235F, if anyone's interested.

I unscrewed the tiny motor that drives this screw on the back of the drive and took the whole screw motor thing out the back of the drive and gave it a good clean. It was bunged up with gunk. Ditto for the catch on the drive head assembly that the screw latches onto.
Also, I (carefully!) sprayed a bit of WD40 into the fitting where the front of the screw is supposed to rest; there's a load of tiny ball bearings in there to help it turn and I wondered if they'd got sticky.

I put it all back together, making sure the drive heads were in the correct position on the screw, and I'm happy to say the first disk I put in was read instantly.

EDIT: I should add that there's a guide rod that the drive head assembly moves up and down. This was rather sticky so I gave it a rub with a paper towel soaked in WD40. This made the head assembly slide along it much easier, and perhaps was the crucial action to getting the drive working again.

I hope this will help others who experience the four clacks of death.

Overdoc · 30 April 2005, 20:23

Congratulations on fixing it !
Yes, sometimes the spindle gets so dirty the heads won't get positioned exactly, or keep hanging on the outside.

kratam · 23 May 2005, 14:38

ive had the same problem wityh my a1200 drive saying df0:????, the external doesnt work either, what could be causing this problem? does the internal drive have to work before the external drive can work? or is the controller for the floppy drive damaged?
i bought an a1200 from ebay, i got the machine, it all worked fine till it just stopped, the man i bought it off kindly sent another one out to me, that worked fine till after a few hours it kneckerd saying the same error. The seller told me that it could be a disk breaking the drives. is this possible?

thanks

Amiga1992 · 24 May 2005, 03:03

Maybe your CIA chips went fuzzy.
A dirty disk COULD de-align drives, yes.

19 April 2005, 13:29	#1
rare_j Zone Friend Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: London Posts: 1,179	Floppy drive suddenly ill The day before I recieve my IDE buffered interface, and I'm all excited, the FDD on my A1200 is suddenly playing up. When I switch the Amiga on, the floppy drive makes all the correct clicking noises it has for the last decade or so. When I insert a bootable floppy the whirring noise starts but nothing happens, the floppy insert screen comes back up as if the disk isnt bootable. (The floppys I'm trying are not knackered.) When booting from the HDD to workbench I insert a floppy and it comes up as DF0????? (and PC0:NDOS); when I remove the floppy DF0????? stays on the workbench rather than disappearing. I'm resigned to the fact I've got to find another FDD, but is it possible one of you recognises this fault as easily fixable?

20 April 2005, 16:25	#11
rare_j Zone Friend Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: London Posts: 1,179	If you take the top off the drive, on one side of the head mountings there's what looks like a big screw that is supposed to move the heads up and down the disk surface. It's a TEAC FD235F, if anyone's interested. I unscrewed the tiny motor that drives this screw on the back of the drive and took the whole screw motor thing out the back of the drive and gave it a good clean. It was bunged up with gunk. Ditto for the catch on the drive head assembly that the screw latches onto. Also, I (carefully!) sprayed a bit of WD40 into the fitting where the front of the screw is supposed to rest; there's a load of tiny ball bearings in there to help it turn and I wondered if they'd got sticky. I put it all back together, making sure the drive heads were in the correct position on the screw, and I'm happy to say the first disk I put in was read instantly. EDIT: I should add that there's a guide rod that the drive head assembly moves up and down. This was rather sticky so I gave it a rub with a paper towel soaked in WD40. This made the head assembly slide along it much easier, and perhaps was the crucial action to getting the drive working again. I hope this will help others who experience the four clacks of death. Last edited by rare_j; 20 April 2005 at 16:56.

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19 April 2005, 16:15	#2
Martin_L Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: UK Age: 41 Posts: 97	maybe its just dirty

19 April 2005, 16:26	#3
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,656	Your floppy drive is buggered, not dirty. if dirty, it would just read wrongly, but if it stays all thetime at DFO;????? then it's buggered. Sorry

19 April 2005, 16:58	#4
_ThEcRoW Amiga NetRunner Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Spain Age: 45 Posts: 942	Definitely your drive is dirty. i had the same problem with mine on my 500. Just took the case apart, cleaned the drive heads with alcohol and worked again perfectly.

19 April 2005, 18:34	#5
Smiley Amiga-less! Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: UK Posts: 1,350	I had the same problem, my A600 is a bit of a mess :-(

19 April 2005, 21:34	#7
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,656	The drive is NOT dirty as I said, otherwise it OWULDN'T remain as DF0:???? after ejecting the disk. I bet you that it's not making the right noises. When you insert it, it does "clack, clack, clack, clack"... and then nothing. Does it do that? DF0:???? + four clack noises when inserting disks, = buggered drive.

20 April 2005, 00:18	#8
Overdoc Commodore Collector Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Austria Age: 53 Posts: 944	Could be a misaligned upper head caused by a sticky disk or simply done out of alignment with age. Can be realigned, but needs a lot of patience and skill !

20 April 2005, 06:29	#9
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,916	Could be a broken diskchange sensor too, but the symptoms don't quite match..

30 April 2005, 20:23	#12
Overdoc Commodore Collector Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Austria Age: 53 Posts: 944	Congratulations on fixing it ! Yes, sometimes the spindle gets so dirty the heads won't get positioned exactly, or keep hanging on the outside.

23 May 2005, 14:38	#13
kratam Registered User Join Date: May 2005 Location: Huddersfield Age: 42 Posts: 44	ive had the same problem wityh my a1200 drive saying df0:????, the external doesnt work either, what could be causing this problem? does the internal drive have to work before the external drive can work? or is the controller for the floppy drive damaged? i bought an a1200 from ebay, i got the machine, it all worked fine till it just stopped, the man i bought it off kindly sent another one out to me, that worked fine till after a few hours it kneckerd saying the same error. The seller told me that it could be a disk breaking the drives. is this possible? thanks

24 May 2005, 03:03	#14
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,656	Maybe your CIA chips went fuzzy. A dirty disk COULD de-align drives, yes.

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