Apple //e keeps Killing Floppy Drives!

Boot Zero

Hey,

I have an Apple //e enhanced, which has recently been brought back into
service. Upon initial use, both floppy drives worked, and I was able to
copy some disks via ADT. After a few hours of intermittent copying,
drive 1 (of a Duo-disk) was throwing errors. Disks that used to boot
stopped booting.

Drive 2 in the duo still worked.

I purchased a stand-alone 5 1/4 floppy, that worked fine for a while,
then had the same problem. First it reads, then it throws errors, then
it won't boot.

Bought another Duo-disk on E-bay. Drive 2 was working, so I removed it
and installed it into my old Duo-disk unit, giving me 2 working drives.
After some hours of intermittent use, drive 1 started throwing errors.
Moving to drive 2, it worked fine for a while, then the same result.

Before all drives died, I did a speed test using Copy2plus. On the
drives that were working, they showed normal speeds (198-202ms). On
the failing drives, the speeds are all over the place. STarting at
around 225, then dropping to almost zero, then back up to 300 or so.

Any idea what might be causing this? Any clues as to what was needs to
be replaced?

Any suggestions welcome

-BZ

Bill Garber

"Boot Zero" <> wrote in message news: ...
> Hey,
>
> I have an Apple //e enhanced, which has recently been brought back into
> service. Upon initial use, both floppy drives worked, and I was able to
> copy some disks via ADT. After a few hours of intermittent copying,
> drive 1 (of a Duo-disk) was throwing errors. Disks that used to boot
> stopped booting.
>
> Drive 2 in the duo still worked.
>
> I purchased a stand-alone 5 1/4 floppy, that worked fine for a while,
> then had the same problem. First it reads, then it throws errors, then
> it won't boot.
>
> Bought another Duo-disk on E-bay. Drive 2 was working, so I removed it
> and installed it into my old Duo-disk unit, giving me 2 working drives.
> After some hours of intermittent use, drive 1 started throwing errors.
> Moving to drive 2, it worked fine for a while, then the same result.
>
> Before all drives died, I did a speed test using Copy2plus. On the
> drives that were working, they showed normal speeds (198-202ms). On
> the failing drives, the speeds are all over the place. STarting at
> around 225, then dropping to almost zero, then back up to 300 or so.
>
> Any idea what might be causing this? Any clues as to what was needs to
> be replaced?
>
> Any suggestions welcome
>
> -BZ

Hate to be the first one to ask, but are you connecting all of these drives
up to the same controller card every time? If so, then I'd say that it's the
controller card killing them.

Bill Garber from GS-Electronics

Boot Zero

Tried two controllers. Same effect. Although, it is possible that both
cards are bad. I have another controller, but now I either need to fix
one of the drives, or buy yet another drive.




Bill Garber wrote:
> "Boot Zero" <> wrote in message news: ...
>> Hey,
>>
>> I have an Apple //e enhanced, which has recently been brought back into
>> service. Upon initial use, both floppy drives worked, and I was able to
>> copy some disks via ADT. After a few hours of intermittent copying,
>> drive 1 (of a Duo-disk) was throwing errors. Disks that used to boot
>> stopped booting.
>>
>> Drive 2 in the duo still worked.
>>
>> I purchased a stand-alone 5 1/4 floppy, that worked fine for a while,
>> then had the same problem. First it reads, then it throws errors, then
>> it won't boot.
>>
>> Bought another Duo-disk on E-bay. Drive 2 was working, so I removed it
>> and installed it into my old Duo-disk unit, giving me 2 working drives.
>> After some hours of intermittent use, drive 1 started throwing errors.
>> Moving to drive 2, it worked fine for a while, then the same result.
>>
>> Before all drives died, I did a speed test using Copy2plus. On the
>> drives that were working, they showed normal speeds (198-202ms). On
>> the failing drives, the speeds are all over the place. STarting at
>> around 225, then dropping to almost zero, then back up to 300 or so.
>>
>> Any idea what might be causing this? Any clues as to what was needs to
>> be replaced?
>>
>> Any suggestions welcome
>>
>> -BZ
>
> Hate to be the first one to ask, but are you connecting all of these drives
> up to the same controller card every time? If so, then I'd say that it's the
> controller card killing them.
>
> Bill Garber from GS-Electronics
>
>
>
>

Bill Garber

"Boot Zero" <> wrote in message
news: ...
> Tried two controllers. Same effect. Although, it is possible that both
> cards are bad. I have another controller, but now I either need to fix
> one of the drives, or buy yet another drive.


Well, most of the parts on those analog boards can still be found.
That should be a comfort to you. Of course, you may need to buy
them from several sources. I have yet to find a single source that
carries all of them at the same time.

Bill Garber from GS-Electronics

Michael J. Mahon

Boot Zero wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I have an Apple //e enhanced, which has recently been brought back into
> service. Upon initial use, both floppy drives worked, and I was able to
> copy some disks via ADT. After a few hours of intermittent copying,
> drive 1 (of a Duo-disk) was throwing errors. Disks that used to boot
> stopped booting.
>
> Drive 2 in the duo still worked.
>
> I purchased a stand-alone 5 1/4 floppy, that worked fine for a while,
> then had the same problem. First it reads, then it throws errors, then
> it won't boot.
>
> Bought another Duo-disk on E-bay. Drive 2 was working, so I removed it
> and installed it into my old Duo-disk unit, giving me 2 working drives.
> After some hours of intermittent use, drive 1 started throwing errors.
> Moving to drive 2, it worked fine for a while, then the same result.
>
> Before all drives died, I did a speed test using Copy2plus. On the
> drives that were working, they showed normal speeds (198-202ms). On
> the failing drives, the speeds are all over the place. STarting at
> around 225, then dropping to almost zero, then back up to 300 or so.
>
> Any idea what might be causing this? Any clues as to what was needs to
> be replaced?
>
> Any suggestions welcome

A marginal power supply can cause many symptoms.

If you have a voltmeter, measure the four output voltages (under load)
and verify that they are within +/-10%.

-michael

AppleCrate: An Apple II "blade server"!
Home page:

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."

Patrick Schaefer

Boot Zero schrieb:
>
> Before all drives died, I did a speed test using Copy2plus. On the
> drives that were working, they showed normal speeds (198-202ms). On
> the failing drives, the speeds are all over the place. STarting at
> around 225, then dropping to almost zero, then back up to 300 or so.

Check your 12V supply. Not only the voltage, the signal shape (noise,
spikes etc), too.

Or get a spare power supply for your IIe to swap in.


Patrick

Boot Zero

Just wanted to follow-up in case others have similar problems. Received
a cleaning kit today, and ran it for 30 seconds on both read and write
heads.

The drives now function normally. Old disks = dirty heads.

Thanks for the help.

Patrick Schaefer wrote:
> Boot Zero schrieb:
>>
>> Before all drives died, I did a speed test using Copy2plus. On the
>> drives that were working, they showed normal speeds (198-202ms). On
>> the failing drives, the speeds are all over the place. STarting at
>> around 225, then dropping to almost zero, then back up to 300 or so.
>
> Check your 12V supply. Not only the voltage, the signal shape (noise,
> spikes etc), too.
>
> Or get a spare power supply for your IIe to swap in.
>
>
> Patrick

Michael J. Mahon

Boot Zero wrote:
> Just wanted to follow-up in case others have similar problems. Received
> a cleaning kit today, and ran it for 30 seconds on both read and write
> heads.

Just for the record, there is only one read-write gap on the head. ;-)

There's a separate erase gap on the same head, but that's another issue.

> The drives now function normally. Old disks = dirty heads.
>
> Thanks for the help.

Glad you got them fixed!

> Patrick Schaefer wrote:
>
>> Boot Zero schrieb:
>>
>>>
>>> Before all drives died, I did a speed test using Copy2plus. On the
>>> drives that were working, they showed normal speeds (198-202ms). On
>>> the failing drives, the speeds are all over the place. STarting at
>>> around 225, then dropping to almost zero, then back up to 300 or so.
>>
>>
>> Check your 12V supply. Not only the voltage, the signal shape (noise,
>> spikes etc), too.
>>
>> Or get a spare power supply for your IIe to swap in.

-michael

AppleCrate: An Apple II "blade server"!
Home page:

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."