neil@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Forsyth) (12/22/87)
Boo hoo the disk drive on my 1040ST is not working. I know it is the drive because I have swapped it in other machines and the problem moved with the drive. The symptoms are strange in that it reads every track on a disk fine but has trouble writing. I say trouble because sometime it formats a track ok sometimes not, but never a whole disk. I had a look at a track it had tried to format and found corruption (gap bytes inconsistant & data damaged ie $E5 corrupted.) If I can't fix this drive I will have to buy a replacement and that will kill my slim chance of being able to afford a hard drive. I phoned a company that upgrades the internal SS drive in a 520STFM to DS and asked if the same drive could be fitted inside a 1040. They said no, which I think is pretty strange since I thought (as most do) that the 520STFM was just a 1040 with a lesser drive and some RAM missing. Has anyone else put a different drive in their 1040 or repaired the original one? If so please advise me. (Note: Our machines will be down(ish) from 24th Dec to Jan 5th) Another interesting point: I wrote a little C program print out a programs base page address and the operating systems start of TPA pointer (at $432). When run it printed out a high base page address eg. $23??? and $A100 for the start of the TPA which is to be expected. But when I put the program by itself in the AUTO folder on a floppy and booted up the machine with a power down/up it came up with $A204 and $A100 respectively. Can anyone tell me why the OS takes this memory away? I know I have a megabyte to play around with but I like to ponder/solve such mysteries. Thanks in advance and a Merry Christmas to all who know me or would like to. Neil Forsyth (the man with the ROFDD (Read Only Floppy Disk Drive) Help!) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I think all right thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I'm certainly not and I'm sick and tired of being told that I am!" - Monty Python Neil Forsyth JANET: neil@uk.ac.hw.cs Dept. of Computer Science ARPA: neil@cs.hw.ac.uk Heriot-Watt University UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!neil Edinburgh Scotland -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
rich@lakesys.UUCP (Rich Dankert) (12/26/87)
In article <1606@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk> neil@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Forsyth) writes: > >Boo hoo the disk drive on my 1040ST is not working. I know it is the drive >because I have swapped it in other machines and the problem moved with the >drive. The symptoms are strange in that it reads every track on a disk fine >but has trouble writing. I say trouble because sometime it formats a track >ok sometimes not, but never a whole disk. I had a look at a track it had tried >to format and found corruption (gap bytes inconsistant & data damaged ie $E5 >corrupted.) If I can't fix this drive I will have to buy a replacement and >that will kill my slim chance of being able to afford a hard drive. >I phoned a company that upgrades the internal SS drive in a 520STFM to DS and >asked if the same drive could be fitted inside a 1040. They said no, which I >think is pretty strange since I thought (as most do) that the 520STFM was >just a 1040 with a lesser drive and some RAM missing. Has anyone else put a >different drive in their 1040 or repaired the original one? >If so please advise me. >(Note: Our machines will be down(ish) from 24th Dec to Jan 5th) I have replaced the 1040 drives with the newer mech's that are currently shipped as external drives. Have had no problem with doing this at all. If I were you, I would clean the head with Freon TF, and get all the dust that usually seems to collect inside the drive. This is the main problem that I have seen in the internal drives, other than the eairly drives having the write protect to go out, in which case I replaced it with a small micro toggle switch. I have seen drives that were running slow, and still read the data onthe disk fine, but didn't write for ^%$#*( . Also have seen some drives that didn't write well either and the cause was due to a mechanical problem with a lever mounted for upper head pressure. Problem was due to this lever being a little loose and thus making alot of noise (like ball bearings inside) and just getting this a little tighter lessened the vibrations allowing the drive to again work well. One other thing that I noticed was that some drives, lost the ability to turn the disk at proper speed *if the drive was sitting in the correct position. When I went and turned the drive over (upside down) to further look at the problem, the problem was gone! Turn the drive back over and the problem returned, turn it upside down, and the drive worked fine again. Weird problem. Unfortunatly, the direct drive motor for turning the media is not available from Atari, so a new drive was installed. One of the newer external ones. Problem solved.... > > Neil Forsyth JANET: neil@uk.ac.hw.cs > Dept. of Computer Science ARPA: neil@cs.hw.ac.uk > Heriot-Watt University UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!neil > Edinburgh > Scotland >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UUCP: {Ihnp4,uwvax}!uwmcsd1!lakesys!rich Discalimer: The words,ideas,and expressions are my own, and not nessasarily always correct, but I wouldn't say that I have done it if I didn't.