Author
| floppydrive quircks
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gravitone
msx friend
Posts: 4 |  Posted: June 20 2009, 22:30 |
Hi everyone,
I just bought "my" first MSX computer after having been depraved off playing on my cousins for the last 15 years or so.
Its a nice little vg-8235 which is in perfect condition (exterior). But the floppy drive seems to have malfunctioned somehow.
I checked the drive motor and belt, the disk spins. I can run a format command and it will give me a format complete and ok message.
However, the disk cannot be read afterwards. It's also a dud in my PC. Using my PC to make a DOS disk results in a readable 360kb floppy, but the msx doesn't seem to care for it much. It gives the doomed "I/O error" and Disk offline message depending on its mood.
Im using some old previously HD formatted floppies. They still work on PC to PC transfers. Should I try with some fresh disks? (Have to buy some). Or is the drive seriously screwed and beyond salvation? Any tips on help to make it work again would be appreciated.
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manuel
msx legend
Posts: 4281 | Posted: June 20 2009, 22:44 |
After formatting on the MSX, it gives an error if you type 'files'?
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gravitone
msx friend
Posts: 4 | Posted: June 20 2009, 22:58 |
yes it gives an error. This afternoon 2x it didn't though. Trying to save basic listing results in the I/O error/Disk offline message now.
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gravitone
msx friend
Posts: 4 | Posted: June 20 2009, 22:59 |
Yet again, these disks were used as windows 98 boot disks during the early 90's for a pentium laptop. I have really no idea to judge if the 360k formatting is working on these.
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manuel
msx legend
Posts: 4281 | Posted: June 20 2009, 23:02 |
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gravitone
msx friend
Posts: 4 | Posted: June 20 2009, 23:09 |
I opened up the drive and it seemed the belt was still powering the disk rotation mechanism. but it could it be malfunctioning because the belt is somehow slipping causing a variable drivespeed, in turn causing read/write errors?
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manuel
msx legend
Posts: 4281 | Posted: June 20 2009, 23:17 |
Yeah, as I said in the FAQ, it may have been worn out. Replace the belt and it should work fine, unless it's really broken (in a different way). In that case, you just need to replace the whole drive.
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Sonic_aka_T
msx guru
Posts: 2344 | Posted: June 21 2009, 23:06 |
Indeed, the drive belt can be the issue, even if the disk appears to be spinning. The easiest (and best) thing to do is to replace the belt. If that fails, find a suitable PC floppy drive and install that. You will need a drive which you can set to DS0 though, and it's usually a good idea to disable the 'HD' switch/led.
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