mason@tc.fluke.COM (Nick Mason) (08/19/87)
Hi! I am having a weird problem with my Apple IIe and am hoping
someone can help me.
I have an apple IIe with 2 floppy disks and the disk controller,
(in slot 6), an 80 col card in slot 0, and a printer card in
slot 1. What has happened is I can boot and read from the disks,
but I cannot WRITE to the disks.
I have tried disconnecting everything but one disk drive, switching
both drives, pushing on all of the IC's on the controller card,etc.
I even replaced most of the chips on the card.
I even got a new disk controller card, but the problem came back
after 2 days.
My current wild guess is that when the printer was powering up
and the machine was trying to boot from the disk that something
happened to the disk controller.
Any Ideas???
Nick Mason/ms272G/John Fluke Mfg Co/Box C9090/Everett WA 98206 USA
mason@tc.fluke.COM
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BITNET: "fluke!mason@uw-beaver.ARPA"@wiscvm.bitnetkoko@uthub.UUCP (08/20/87)
In article <1515@sputnik.COM>, mason@tc.fluke.COM (Nick Mason) writes: > > Hi! I am having a weird problem with my Apple IIe and am hoping > someone can help me. > > I have an apple IIe with 2 floppy disks and the disk controller, > (in slot 6), an 80 col card in slot 0, and a printer card in > slot 1. What has happened is I can boot and read from the disks, > but I cannot WRITE to the disks. > > ... > > Any Ideas??? > > Nick Mason/ms272G/John Fluke Mfg Co/Box C9090/Everett WA 98206 USA > mason@tc.fluke.COM > UUCP: > {{cornell,decvax,ihnp4,sdcsvax,tektronix,utcsrgv}!uw-beaver} \ > {allegra,microsoft,gatech!sb1,hplabs!lbl-csam,decwrl!sun,sunup} - !fluke!mason > {ssc-vax,hplsla,wavetek,physio,uw-vlsi,cae780,tikal,telematic} / > ARPA: fluke!mason@uw-beaver.ARPA > BITNET: "fluke!mason@uw-beaver.ARPA"@wiscvm.bitnet Recently I had the same problem with a disk drive on my Apple ][+ clone. If you have two drives, then swap them, i.e. swap there connections to the disk controller card. If the problem goes to the other drive, then it indeed is the controller. (However, this is not likely, since most of the electronics on the board are used by both drives alike.) Anyways, in my case, the problem turned out to be corroded pins on one of the chips plugged into the adapter board in the back of my Shugart disk drive (a model 400, or something like that). (This adapter board is a small printed circuit board sitting vertically -- the external cable is plugged into it directly. The board is needed when connecting this model of Shugart drive into an Apple ][+ or ][e system.) The solution was to unplug that chip, clean the contacts with polishing compound -- the material used for cleaning silverware will do -- and plugging it back in. (A more obvious solution is to simply replace the chip with a new one!)
kamath@reed.UUCP (Sean Kamath) (08/20/87)
In article <1515@sputnik.COM> mason@tc.fluke.COM (Nick Mason) writes:
-> I have an apple IIe with 2 floppy disks and the disk controller,
-> (in slot 6), an 80 col card in slot 0, and a printer card in
-> slot 1. What has happened is I can boot and read from the disks,
-> but I cannot WRITE to the disks.
->
-> I have tried disconnecting everything but one disk drive, switching
-> both drives, pushing on all of the IC's on the controller card,etc.
-> I even replaced most of the chips on the card.
->
-> I even got a new disk controller card, but the problem came back
-> after 2 days.
->
-> Any Ideas???
->
Oooh, sounds to me like what happenned to me. Try getting a new ribbon
cable. For some reason, it can send a false "write protected" status to
DOS. It can be bad. You actually can write to the disk, but you have
to tell DOS to ignore the write protected status. It's not a good thing
to do. Try getting a new ribbon cable from your dealer or a mail order
house, and if that doesn't work, well, shoot me! :-)
Sean Kamath
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