Conference 7.286::atarist

    Taking 1040 apart is a piece of cake, especially if you have no
    urge to remove unnecessary items while you are in there.
    
    You should be able to remove the floppy drive for closer examination
    with little problem.  I've taken mine out before.
    
    It sounds like your mechanism is jammed and just needs rattling.
    
    Steph

    CompuClub is an authorized Atari service center.  Call (617) 879-5232
    if you want to find out about timeframes/cost for fixing.
    
    							-Dave

    
>         Last night my internal floppy on my 1040 broke.  When I press
>    the eject button, the button goes in, but the disk don't come out.
    
        I've had this several times. It seems to happen when the label
        begins to separate from the diskette while it is in the drive.
        I take a pair of tweezers (don't tell my wife) and pull the
        floppy out. Never had to take the machine apart yet. 

    Sometimes it's not even the label, but that usually helps.
    
    I keep a pair of needle-nosed pliers by the computer!

Well, to not start another note about problems etc I'll use
this one.

I recently picked up an old-style 520 with TOS/rom cheap (yep, that one
advertised in here).  What exactly I am going to do with it I'm not
sure.

Anyway, it often (most of the time) doesn't boot with disk.  The external
floppy's light goes on but the disk doesn't turn and the machine 
does the no-floppy-drive-available-boot.  I've re-seated the chips on
the motherboard and in the floppy several times.  It appears to fix
the problem for the next boot or so.  Sometimes the machine boots but the
floppy goes inactive after about 2 minutes or so.  Sometimes however a cold
machine doesn't boot either.  To me that doesn't point to a heat sensitive
chip (though it could be).  Becasue re-seating them doesn't seem to
provide a reliable fix I don't think that is the problem either.  I think
that a chip on the motherboard is bad or going bad.  The floppy works
fine as a second drive when attached to my normal machine (a 520stfm with
1 meg DIYS* RAM and a Toshiba DSDD disk replacement).  Could somebody
with more hardware knowledge (especially of the old style 520s) point
out the chips that control IO -- disk communications?  Any other hints as to
what to look for?

Also, I would like to get the memory upgraded to a meg on this machine.
Because it is old style, there isn't room already available on the mother
board for new chips -- any ideas on upgrading this machine cheaply?  (will
hack if necessary -- key word is CHEAP).  Also, anyone know of any pitfalls
replacing the single sided disk drive mechanism in the external Atari
floppy (SF354) with a double sided?  I did this in my other 520 (internal drive)
and assume that a similar procedure works in the external floppy.


Thanks

Chad

Sorry, from last note:

* DIYS = Do It YourSelf

Chad

Would somebody with hardware knowledge/520ST(old) schematics be willing to
donate some time to look at it and poke around if I were to bring it to them?

I swapped one chip to no avail (I don't know exactly what this chip does
but it is close to the IO ports (hd and floppy) on both machines and
has leads connecting them).

Any help appreciated...

Thanks

Chad

If it helps anyone I'd bring it to anyone within E-mass and S. NH region
if you'd be willing to poke around in it.

Thanks

Chad

Not to be a pain but...

I can't afford/justify paying biggo buckos to get this machine fixed 
professionally.

I swapped out the glue chip and the other square chip last night with my good 
ST and tried it and it still doesn't work.  There aren't any other
socketed chips except the ROM and I don't think that that would cause this
problem.  I did swap one at a time 3 of the ROMs anyway, no go.

These are the symptoms.  Disk drive is on.  Turn machine on.  Screen comes
up white (on mono screen) for about 20 seconds.  Then arrow appears.  There
are *NO* icons on the screen, only the menu bar and the mouse-pointer.
When the ST is first turned on, the drive LED goes on about 3-5 seconds.  The
drive motor never turns on.  This drive does however work on my other ST
as drive B quite well.

Could the disk controller chip on the ST motherborad be bad?  Or maybe it is 
just a resister or some type of component?

I don't know enough about hardware to really trace the problem logically but
I can and will solder on the board -- I can replace components.

Any ideas...please...

Thanks

Chad

    RE: -< please say something... >-

    Hello!
    
    	Ray

maybe the cable?

A friendly feline has chewed through two of mine, and my ST exhibited
the same symptoms....


				-sjk

re: -.1

>maybe the cable?
>
>A friendly feline has chewed through two of mine, and my ST exhibited
>the same symptoms....


Unfortunately not... Th floppy works fine with cable on another ST as a 2nd 
drive.

Thanks anyway...

Chad

    If the symptoms are really the same and the cable/drive is good then I
    would carefully check out the floppy jack and connections to the jack
    on the back of the CPU.
    

    Chad,
    
    I'm the guy who said "Hello" in response to your plea for someone
    to "please say something". Maybe this reply will be a little more
    helpfull. :-)
    
    I should preface this with the fact that I have never had to fix an ST
    (aside from the "normal" ritual of re-seating chips) and most of what
    I'll say just comes from what little is in the ABACUS Internals book
    (which I'm told has it's flaws). 
    
    There are two chips which are used to control the floppy drive in the
    ST. One of the ports on the YM-2149 sound chip controls the SIDE SELECT
    and the two DRIVE SELECT lines. The 1772 which is the "floppy
    controller" chip and controls everything else, including the MOTOR ON
    line! 
    
    Judging by your description of what does and does not happen to
    the drive, I would say that the sound chip is ok (the light on
    indicates you are getting a drive select), and the problem is that
    you are not getting a MOTOR ON signal (indicated by the fact that
    "the motor never turns"). Since the MOTOR ON comes from the 1772,
    I would suspect that chip of being bad or a broken etch/wire between
    the 1772 and the drive (oops I just noticed ABACUS shows an inverter
    between the 1772 and the drive so that could be a problem as well).
    
    The MOTOR ON signal is on pin 8 of the floppy connector so you may
    be able to backtrack from there to find the inverter chip and the
    1772.
    
    NOTE: One thing that you should check first (before trying to track
    down a bad MOTOR ON signal) is the +12v from the power supply. The
    motor runs on +12 so if there is no +12 then the motor won't run
    (pretty philosophical stuff huh :-).

    
    	Ray

Ray!

Thanks.  I'll check it out this weekend.  I'm 99.999% sure it ain't no power
from power supply as the drive works on another machine and when you first
turn the floppy power on you can hear it spin for about � of a second.

I think it is either the connector being bad (as buzz hamilton suggested) or
a bad etch/solder joint some where on the line you mentioned to the floppy
controller chip.  Perhaps also the chip itself.

Thanks a million for the research!!

I'll report on MOnday what I found out.

Chad

    Yea I forgot that on the external drives there is a dedicated external
    power supply that plugs into the drive. I was thinking about it getting
    the +12 from the ST (ie: like my internal drive on the 1040). 
    
    I just remembered that I have a spec on the floppy contrller chip at
    home, if you want to know the pin number for the MOTOR ON signal I can
    look it up and post it for you tonight. You should be able to watch it
    with a volt meter when you turn the ST on, though I don't know the
    polarity and/or voltage level. 
    
    If you don't have access to notes on the weekend you can give me
    a call if you like. My home phone number is ....ok, everyone except
    Chad close your eyes for a moment....(508)534-0699....Ok every can
    open there eyes again....I said YOU CAN OPEN YOUR EYES NOW.....well
    ok so I watch to many commercials :-)

	Ray    

                      <<< Note 15.16 by LEDDEV::WALLACE >>>
I'm at home now.  Unfortunately I loaned all my UNITERM and WHACK 
disks out so I am using the VT52 emulator (which ain't that
good).  For some reason, edt don't work in screen mode  so I
have to use line mode (at 1200 baud).  I traced the motor on
line from pin 8 of the connector to the inverter chip.  I can't
get past that as I don't know what line goes out/in from this
chip.  What pin on the FD (wdc1772 chip) controller chip is
the motor on line?  Knowing that I'll be able to trace it to
the inverter.  If that trace is good then it is either the inverter
or the FD controller chip.  The trace looks good from the connector
into the inverter chip.

If/when I need to replace a chip I'm socketing it.  In 
anticipation I bought 2 ic heatsink gizmos :-)  (actually
in anticipation of piggybacking ram into the machine).

Thanks a million for all the help so far.

Chad
(Sorry about the disorganization of this entry... Due to mentiond
circumstances. :-)
------------------------------------------------------------------
                        -< May have more info at home >-

    Yea I forgot that on the external drives there is a dedicated external
    power supply that plugs into the drive. I was thinking about it getting
    the +12 from the ST (ie: like my internal drive on the 1040). 
    
    I just remembered that I have a spec on the floppy contrller chip at
    home, if you want to know the pin number for the MOTOR ON signal I can
    look it up and post it for you tonight. You should be able to watch it
    with a volt meter when you turn the ST on, though I don't know the
    polarity and/or voltage level. 
    
    If you don't have access to notes on the weekend you can give me
    a call if you like. My home phone number is ....ok, everyone except
    Chad close your eyes for a moment....(508)534-0699....Ok every can
    open there eyes again....I said YOU CAN OPEN YOUR EYES NOW.....well
    ok so I watch to many commercials :-)

	Ray    

Hi

Thanks to Ray I was able to trace the path on the motherboard.

The pin on the WD1772 is pin 20.

I found no broken traces or any such thing.  Testing the voltage on that
pin when starting the boot process showed no activity (it should have gone
high).

More later...

Chad

And continues some more...

Well, I replaced both the 7406 logic chip an dthe WD1772 floppy chip (the
latter yesterday).  The machine still doesn't work.  Now the floppy motor
comes on (sometimes after 5-10 seconds after ST power up, sometimes
immediately) and usually won't go off.  I tried the old
WD1772 again and it has similar behavior now but the motor generally goes on
and off, on and off, though it stays on for many seconds and then goes off a few
seconds and then back on.  This whole thing is wierd.  I tried reseating
all socketed chips, swapping them out, etc.  I also took the glue and
memory controller chips (the square ones) and bent all the socket's pins out
and then replaced them (a USENET mail I got said to do this).  Well, if anyone
has any suggestions I'd be happy to entertain them (the suggestions).

I beginning to think that it will either have to be professionally repaired
or the motherboard will have to be sent to Atari for swapping (with their
$90-100 program).  WHat's the going repair rate (labor???)
What would *you* do? Repair or swap up front.  Repair and then having to swap
could be real expensive as well as repair alone.

I'll sell it as is for $200 (what I paid) with SM124 and SF354 if anyone's
interested.

Chad

Why do both floppy motors go on when I have a SF354 attached as a second
drive to my ST with a DIY Toshiba DSDD internal floppy.  For accesses to
either drive both motors go on.  The access works correctly however.  

thanks

Chad

This worried me for a while.

    There is ONE motor on signal that feeds both drives. The actual
    "selection" of one drive over the other is done by two seperate drive
    select signals.
    
    	Ray

Here is another floppy drive problem for you poeple to think about.

Last night I was arcing a file to upload for a friend and I had to reboot
to clear out memory (ACC etc).  When I booted back up, it booted fine,
icons appeared, you can click on the icons, the files appear, you can show
info the files, desk accessories get loaded and work, data files can be written
and read, and floppies can be formatted (ds) but when double clicking on
a .PRG file I invariably get the 'Possible Data corruption -- check cable 
and disk' etc. dialog box -- retry doesn;t work and cancel does a soft boot.
This happened on every disk I tried.  It also happened on known virus-free
disks after a cold reboot from the program I had made the datafile from
(a new (legal) program just gotten from a friend).

Any ideas before I rip my mahine apart?  I also tried dropping the machine a
few inches for the old trick but no go.

1 meg 520stfm with toshiba DSDD floppy drive home expanded and "original"
(V1.0?) TOS.

Thanks

Chad

    
    Chad, have you tried to boot the machine without any floppy at all?
    This takes some minutes, but the system comes up with no floppy
    access. After that reconnect the drive and install the drive from
    the desktop. If the same problem occurs this could point you perhaps
    to a bad ROM chip (the actions you've been taken with the drive
    like formatting, reading, writing a.s.o. eliminates the drive or
    cable as the source for your problem as I believe).
    Looks like there is some soft problem while booting, Auto-folder,
    ACCs or the boot routine itself. 
    
    Looking forward to read the solution for this interesting problem...
    Bernd
    

        In reading  over  this  note  and  its  replies, my 520ST and
        floppy drive (SS/SD) just  went on the fritz.  It sounds like
        the exact same problem that Chad had last year. 
        
        I'm curious as to the  solution  that  was used to remedy the
        problem as I'm currently Atari-less now.  
        
        Problem is:
        
        Power on - screen goes white,  there's  a very slight audible
        zip-zip from the SF315 (?) drive.   The  drive  light goes on
        for 3-5 seconds, goes off for two seconds  and  back  on  for
        eternity.  Every so often you still hear the zip-zip from the
        drive,  but  nothing  boots.  Finally there's the pointer and
        green screen  with  no icons for the drive.  I've checked the
        cable, and checked  inside  the  520ST for cold solder joints
        and have been unsuccessful in remedying the problem.
        
        Any help would be greatly appreciated !
        
        Thanks in advance. . .
        
        Matt

    There is a virus that does just that. "No desktop icons". Have you
    tried booting without a disk in the drive. It will take about 1-2
    minutes but then should come up with a normal low res desktop. Remeber
    to boot up from cold.
    If this works then I suggest that you run a virus checker on your
    disks. If it still doesn't work then your problem is internal.
    
    Regards
    
    Kev

    
    the same effect also occurs if something is connected to the DMA-port
    but not powered on
    
    Bernd
    

        Well, tried  the  power on, wait until screen comes up and it
        worked like you  said,  but when I tried to access the drive,
        it said that the drive was not responding. 
        
        However:
        
                LED was lit the  entire  time  during the 1-2 minutes
        with no diskette inserted.   It  remained  on  when  I  first
        inserted the diskette and all I  heard was the aforementioned
        zip-zip (15/20 seconds) zip-zip. . .
        
        Only thing I changed was I removed  my modem/modem cable from
        the system so I could move the system no more than three feet
        to  the  other  side of my desk.  I  re-ran  the  cables  and
        plugged everything right back in the way it had been.    Only
        after  this  move  did  this  problem  show up.  Before that,
        everything was working fine.  I'm out of ideas. . .
        
        Oh well. . .anyone have a 760KB drive they want to sell ? :^)
        
        Matt

The DMA chip is a socketed 40-pin DIP with an Atari part number.
They cost about $30.  They are easy to borrow from friends machines.
This has been the cause of similar systems in two systems that I repaired.

    re: .29
    
    See #1147 for a similar problem. Reseating the DMA chip did the trick
    for me, as mentioned there. I usually see the problem every time I move
    the darn thing, as you did.
    
    							Brian

        Now the scary part. . .
        
        I've got  the  system  opened up directly beside me.  This is
        roughly what I see.
       
           HD Port   FD port     COMM      Printer
        ---++++++++++--++++----++++++++---+++++++++------------------
        |                        +===+ +===+                        |
        |    +-----------+  +---------+                             |
        |    |  40 Pin   |  |  28 Pin | +===+ +----------+          |
        |    +-----------+  +---------+       |  40 Pin  |          |
        |               ^--------^            +----------+          |
        | +-----------+          |                 ^                |
        | |  28 Pin   |  <-+     |                 |                |
        | +-----------+    |     |                 |                |
        | +-----------+    |     +These are all hard soldered       |
        | |  28 Pin   |  <-+      to the board.                     |
        | +-----------+    |                                        |
        | +-----------+    |                                        |
        | |  28 Pin   |  <-+                                        |
        | +-----------+    |                                        |
        | +-----------+    |                                        |
        | |  28 Pin   |  <-+----These are the only chips            |
        | +-----------+    |    that are socketed on this           |
        | +-----------+    |    side of the board.                  |
        | |  28 Pin   |  <-+                                        |
        | +-----------+    |                                        |
        | +-----------+    |                                        |
        | |  28 Pin   |  <-+                                        |
        | +-----------+                                             |
        +-----------------------------------------------------------+ 
        
        I guess I shouldn't assume anything, but I believe the one on
        the top left hand  side is the chip I'm supposed to be giving
        the attention to.  Needless to say, it's not socketed.
        
        The numbers on the chip are:
        
                    C025913-38
                    PH23-030
                     7A1  52
        
        Somehow I was looking for a WD1772.  The chip directly to the
        right of the 40 Pin DIP is marked VL1772-02PC. 
        
        Just barely got finished tearing the entire  mother board out
        of the system and re-installing it.  I  found what looks like
        a  brass  square  IC  Chip  cover  (9/16" square) between the
        bottom cover plate and the circuit  etch.    I  have  no idea
        where it came from since none of the chips look like they had
        one  to  begin with.   Definitely  could've  caused  a  short
        though !
        
        It's in the process of doing the exact same thing that it was
        doing  before, and the drive has been spinning/zip-ziping for
        the  past five minutes.  Still no go even after  de-installing
        and re-installing the drive.  (Via `Options')
        
        If  this  doesn't  help  describe it any better, does someone
        know if the DMA chip is a `sellable' item to an Atari owner ?
        I know some of these things can be `proprietary' and made for
        the use of the company alone. (i.e. - factory installed only)
        
        Thanks again for the help and please let me know if there are
        any questions about my diarrhea of the fingers. :^)
        
        Matt

    
    Here comes another and for me very confusing floppy problem:
    
    Configuration:	1040ST (one of the first - 1986)
    				upgraded to 2.5 Mbyte
    			TOS 1.4
    			Quantum Prodrive 80 S with ICD controller
    
    Symptoms:		Usually I boot the system from the harddisk and
    			sometimes I'm just using the floppy. This worked
    			without any problems until recently when I tried to
    			boot from the floppy and had to discover that no
    			ACCs or programs in the AUTO folder of the floppy
    			had been executed. Looking at the contents of the
    			disk revealed that 0 Bytes were used/available,
    			0 tracks etc.. Then I tried to access the same disk
    			using drive B (which is the same physical drive as 	
    			A). And voila, I could see the directory
    			and everything. But only once ! When I then tried
    			to access the disk a second time (still on drive
    			B) I got the same symptoms as on A: 0 Bytes used
    			and available. My next thought was then that the
    			disk may have been infected by a virus. I tried
    			with another disk which I hadn't used a long time
    			but did work the last time, and I got the same
    			nasty behaviour. I then tried to reset all chips,
    			removing and reconnecting all internal/external
    			cables etc. but the problem stayed. 
    			Booting from the harddisk still worked, but whenever
    			I tried to access now the floppies, I could either
    			read it once or not at all. Formatting the floppy
    			(from the desktop and other formatters) did not cure 
    			the problem. 
    			I was already going to buy a new floppy until some
    			days ago when I tried to boot with a friend's floppy 
    			disk. And this time I could read the directories etc
    			as often as I wanted (on A and B) ! 
    			However, after reading one of my disks the symptom
    			comes back! And it doesn't matter wether I use 
    			newly formatted disks or old ones!
    			
    			Well, for me it looks very much like a virus, but
    			VKILLER doesn't see any virus on my disks.
    
    Does anybody has a suggestion how to solve this puzzle ?  
    				 	
    thanks in advance,
    					Matthias Heiden
    
    

>    			disk may have been infected by a virus. I tried
>    			with another disk which I hadn't used a long time
>    			but did work the last time, and I got the same
>    			nasty behaviour.
REMEMBER if you had a virus the virus would be in memory at this point. So to
try an uninfected disk you must shut off the ST (before putting in the
uninfected disk), leave the system off for about 30 seconds (to clear memory)
then insert the uninfected disk in the drive and powerup the ST. If you did
not do the power cycle step then the virus was not only still running but it
probably also copied itself to the (previously) good disk.

>    			days ago when I tried to boot with a friend's floppy 
>    			disk. And this time I could read the directories etc
>    			as often as I wanted (on A and B) ! 
>    			However, after reading one of my disks the symptom
>    			comes back! And it doesn't matter wether I use 
>    			newly formatted disks or old ones!
This supports what I said above, a cold boot (powerup) with an uninfected disk
worked fine, but as soon as you put in one of your infected disks all
subsequent disks got infected (ie: even the newly formated disks).
    			
>    			Well, for me it looks very much like a virus, but
>    			VKILLER doesn't see any virus on my disks.
What version of VKiller are you using? You could try puting the antivirus on a
couple of the disks then boot with and use them.

Of course it may not be a virus at all and you may already all that I've
stated above (ie: how to handle viruses).

	Ray

    
    	Thanks for pointing out the importance of power cycling.
    	This gave me new ideas for further investigation.	
    
    	Well, in fact it looks now very much like a virus. 
    	And most likely it's sitting somewhere on my harddisk (:(. 
    	How to get rid of it ?
    	
    	So far I found out the following:
    	The virus seems to behave such that it does not
    	write itself into the boot sector of floppies but rather
    	modifies the the track and sector information on the floppy
    	such that it appears to have no space available and no
    	space used. This at least avoids that data is overwritten.
    	However, for Vkiller the floppy looks legal (no executable
    	boot sector) but it reports the garbage  values for tracks 
    	and sectors. 
    	The virus itself must be hidden in one of my programs on the
    	harddisk - but which one ? Hopefully it came with one of 
    	my recent programs. 
    	But there is still one puzzling problem which I don't understand:
        I boot the system without floppy and harddisk in order to have 
    	a clean system. Trying to read the infected disk on drive A or B 
    	will make both drives useless even for uninfected disks put in
    	later. Any explanation ?
    
    	thanks,			Matthias

        <sigh>. . .
        
        2� weeks.  .  .still down.  Anyone want a 520ST CHEAP ? 
        
        � - :^)
        
        Matt

How cheap?

I'm interested in collecting broken or sick ST's for parts and/or
repairing them and using them in Midi Maze parties.  But they have to be
REAL CHEAP.

I also want to build up a system to donate to a Christian rock band that
will take it on a foreign missions tour, and leave it with the mission.

        Well.  .  .I'd prefer trying to fix it first.
        
        So.  .  .does anyone have any info/contacts where I could get
        this infamous, questionable chip  ?  I'm still not sure which
        chip it is, even after my lengthy reply earlier.  
        
        Talk to me !  I'm listening. . .and need SERIOUS help !! :^)
        
        Matt
        

    I have a different floppy problem on a 1040STf, about five years old.
    
    It wrecks disks.  Being a one-floppy system, it beats on them pretty
    hard, so that might be expected.  But how much should a diskette take
    before it goes west?
    
    Last night I tried to update my current Word Perfect System Disk to add
    support for a new printer.  It behaved as expected:  I could read the
    existing configuration (grind grind), but the WP-distributed original
    Printer disk didn't read reliably.  So I copied the Printer disk and
    was able to use that new copy...  But then when it came time to write
    the new configuration to the system disk, I got suspicious.
    
    So I took the system disk to my clone (I had formatted it with IBMFMT,
    thank heavens) and copied SPRINTER, SFONT and SFEED to my hard disk,
    then stuck it back into the Atari.  As expected, it ground a few times
    then beeped.  The old SPRINTER, SFONT and SFEED files had indeed been
    deleted, but the new ones hadn't been written.  (Word Perfect does the
    same routine with document files.)
    
    I'm a bit tired of re-creating system disks all the time.  Does this
    sound normal (it's a Chinon diskette drive)?  Or can the drive be
    cleaned/adjusted?  Or how hard is it to put a generic floppy drive into
    the mis-shaped Atari case?  Thanks,
       fred

>    Does this sound normal (it's a Chinon diskette drive)?
No.

>  Or can the drive be cleaned
After 5 years? No, the dirt is probably caked on so thick and hard that ...
Just kidding :-) Actualy yes, the heads can and should be cleaned. Buying a
head cleaning kit is the easiest but perhaps not the most thorough way.
Otherwise you can borrow some head cleaning solution from your local system
manager or field service rep (they use it to clean heads in tape drives) and
clean the heads with a cotton swap (or better yet the cloth swabs that come
with the tape cleaner :-). Removing the drive and taking off the cover makes
this easier to do (ie: you can see what you are doing then) but is not
neccesissary.

>adjusted?
The spindle speed can be adjusted on some drives with a little potentiometer
inside the drive housing. You can check the speed with procopy as well as a
few other pd programs written specificly for that purpose. The speed should be
300 rpm. The other adjustment is a head alignment which cost about $70 to have
done at your "local" service center.

> Or how hard is it to put a generic floppy drive into
>    the mis-shaped Atari case?
A lot of people install a generic floppy in the ST. It means cutting the ST's
case a little (squaring and/or enlarging the whole). I haven't tried it, but
some people have claimed they got a fairly clean/smooth cut.

	Ray

        No help on the chip then ?

All Atari chips are available from Best Electronics, and a select few
(especially those used by the disk subsystem) are also available from
Toad Computers.  Don't have the phone numbers handy, but both are in
this file somewhere, and a SEARCH command should find them fairly
easily.

    
    I have another problem with floppy drives now. On the new MEGA STE
    I want to run a 3.5"/5.25" Combi-Drive from Canon that supports HD.
    According to the dealer my motherboard is prepared to cope with 
    HD drives (selected controller-chip, special dipswitch setting) and
    in my version of TOS (2.05) the HiDens option is available.
    
    I connected the drive with a untwisted ribbon cable to the internal
    floppy port. Both drives A and B show the select-LED on when I access
    them, but they can't read, write or format. "Check cables a.s.o."
    When I run a special HiDens formating program that starts with the 
    last track, the drives format down to track 1 and terminate with an
    error on track zero. Format from 0 up terminates instantly.
    The strange thing is that I even can't use the 720kB densitiy. Another
    phone call with the dealer exchanging floppy controller specs assured
    that the right chip for HD is in and the switch settings are ok also.
    The drive runs just perfect in all densities on a 80386 MS-DOS machine.
    Now I'm using my old 3.5"/720kB drive with no problem. The setting of
    the switches is: all to off except No. 7 that is on.
    
    Any ideas?
    Bernd
    

Look in some previous notes about floppy drives.  The St does something
nonstandard with the floppy drive numbers.  I cant remember the specifics,
but you might have to recable the drives internally.

							-Dave

>                                                  The St does something
>nonstandard with the floppy drive numbers.
>                                                        -Dave

	The ST external floppy connector has internally the drive select 1
	signal from the motherboard wired to the floppy cable signal drive
	select 0. Thus to hook up an external floppy drive to the ST the drive
	must respond to drive select 0 signal (not 1 as would be logical
	for the second drive).

	Hope this helps


	---markus---

>	select 0. Thus to hook up an external floppy drive to the ST the drive
>	must respond to drive select 0 signal (not 1 as would be logical
>	for the second drive).

Ahhhh but Bernd is not connecting to the external connector, he is (if I
understand his message correctly) connecting inside the ST to the ribbon
cable going to the drive. In which case he either needs to change the drive
select switch or jumper on the new drive or swap the drive select 0 and 1
wires in the ribbon cable (not a fun task but doable).

	Ray

    
    right, I do connect to the internal connector. But the drive select
    works just ok. It seems that the STE has both (drive 0 and 1) wired
    correctly on that internal connector. Btw I can switch the drive
    numbers of that Canon double-drive with one jumper on the drive from
    A/B to B/A, which also works ok. So when I double-click on the A-Icon
    the select LED of A comes on and something is done in the drive, the
    same situation for B. But read/write/format does not work! Neither
    in 720 kB nor in 1.44/1.2 MB. I also tried different step-rates,
    different formating programs (including the built-in HiDens TOS
    version). Only the one which formats from the highest track down to 
    the lowest gives me a moving slider on the screen indicating the 
    tracks formated, but terminates on track zero...
    
    Bernd
     

    
    further investigations came up with the following (strange) results:
    
    I measured the lines of the ribbon-cable and found out that the
    signal on SIDE SELECT was 1V instead of 5V. So the pull-ups in the
    drive needed too much power the sound chip couldn't deliver. The 
    old "soundchip-is-not-buffered" problem!!!
    A 7407 with 3.3k resistors to buffer the sound-chip's three lines
    DRIVE A SELECT, DRIVE B SELECT and SIDE SELECT fixed my problem 
    for drive A (3.5" HD). This drive now works fine for single-sided,
    double-sided and for HD. The problem was that the drive always was
    using one side because there never was a valid HI to switch to the
    other side.
    
    But I still have a problem with the other half of my combi-drive:
    the 5.25" won't work! Measuring the same lines gave me absolutely
    no HI-signal on SIDE SELECT as soon as drive B was selected. This
    can't be the drive because I checked this line at the computer's
    side of the 7407. The computer even makes no try to put this line
    to a HI state as soon as I'm working with drive B! Is this a bug
    in TOS 2.06??? The drive select LED comes on, you hear the head
    moving but it is always working with SIDE SELECT = 0V what causes
    the OS to terminate with "Error while formating drive B, check the
    cables a.s.o." I tried this out with 360kB/720kB/1.2MB 5.25"-floppies
    in all three possible modes (single sided/double sided/HI-DENS).
    Because the sound chip is buffered now, this seems to be a software
    problem for me...
    
    Any suggestions?
    Bernd
    
    
    

    
    mistake in last reply: the Side Select line is *always* high as 
    soon as drive B is selected....
    
    Bernd
    
    

In the old days, using 5�" floppy drives meant setting a parameter in
low memory to tell the ST to use a slower step rate.  Could this be the
problem?

If you have the NeoDESK control panel, if you click on the floppy disk
icon in the control panel window, it will offer you the opportunity to
select 6ms seek rates, which they indicate is correct for 5� inch
drives. 

(The default is 3ms.)

    
    I tried it out yesterday night, using 6ms and 12ms without any luck.
    Thanks for the input, but it didn't change the state of the side
    select line for drive B. Strange problem, isn't it?
    
    Bernd
    
    

    Since a couple of weeks, my internal floppy on a 1040STFM has become
    very suspicious, such as corrupting files when copying to harddisk.
    
    After some investigation, I found that when you insert a floppy, the
    drive occasionaly seems to fail seeks. The sound is terrible!
    This is intermittent, perhaps 3 of 10 times when inserting floppies.
    I took apart the floppy to clean the heads and check cables/screws.
    Also checked for flakey flatcable from the motherboard.
    Same problem.
    
    1. Anyone seen this before? Any hints?
    
    2. I checked the drive rpm with one of those rpm-programs.
       The speed is approx 304 rpm's. Is that too high? 
       There is a pot on top of the drive. Is that the adjustment?
       
    The drive is an Epson.
    /johan

    
    does this error occur with different floppies? Usually I had noise
    like this when trying to read high-formatted floppies, or a format
    the drive could not read.
    
    Bernd
    

    I haven't confirmed it 100%, but different floppies with 80/9,82/10 or
    83/11, fails all.
    But as mentioned, the failure occurs only during the very first seek,
    right after the insertion. If you do a second directory-search (open
    the icon) all seems(?) ok.
    
    One of my own theory is that some parts in the drive is shock-sensitive.
    
    /johan   

    Maybe unlikely, but since the noise it makes is terrible, maybe its
    something to do with the metal cover not sliding fully back on the
    diskette and fouling the heads??
    
    Tony

When you first put a floppy in the drive the OS reads track 0 in order to
find out the format of the floppy. This is (normaly) the only time that track
0 gets read. So if you have a problem reading track 0, the only time the
problem would show up would be when you first put the floppy in the drive.
   >    But as mentioned, the failure occurs only during the very first seek,
   >    right after the insertion.
   Yuuup...

If an error occurs trying to seek to track 0 the head is moved back a track or
two (I don't know how far but is not very far) and the seek to track 0 is
attempted again. This retry happens a few times (5 to 10 maybe?). When this
happens it sounds like something is vibrating.

I'm not sure, but this sounds like the problem you are having. I had the same
problem with one of my drives a few years ago. I think what caused my drive to
go bad was a disk that someone gave me that was formatted to 82 tracks,
   >    I haven't confirmed it 100%, but different floppies with 80/9,82/10 or
   >    83/11, fails all.
   ( Hmmm... :-) )
when my drive tried to seek to track 82 it banged against the head stop (this
does not happpen to all drives, depends on the manufacturer I guess), hitting
the head stop (which the system "kindly" retried for me a dozzen times) caused
the band to slip which connects the stepper motor to the heads.
   >    One of my own theory is that some parts in the drive is shock-sensitive.
   Yeah, banging the heads against the head stop is quite a shock :-)

After the slip, when the track 0 sensor mechanism (an arm on the motor shaft
interupts a LED/photo diode pair) indicated track 0, the heads were not over
track 0, so the seek error occured.

Theoreticaly you should be able to readjust this band back to it's original
position in order to fix the problem. I tried, got it better, but could never
get it to work with all floppies. I think the setting is so sensitive/critical
that you realy need an alignment disk, a scope, and to know where to connect
the scope, etc...  Best Electronics sells the alignment disks, but I don't
know what if any instructions they come with.

I ended up replacing the drive.

Hope you don't mind all the detail, but I was in a typing mood :-)

	Ray

    Tnx guys and especially Ray for all the details ;-).
    This Friday I did some further investigation and at one occasion I
    found that not even the spindle was running when the heads were out
    seeking!!
    This time I did a complete strip down of the drive. Removed all PCB's
    and reseated all those tiny flatcables etc.
    
    The drive hasn't shown any problems this weekend and I really hope that
    the problem is fixed! 
    
    re.-1 and "shock-sensitive": What I suspected was that when you insert
    a floppy in drive, there always is a HARD "snap" when the floppy
    settles. This could have shaken the drive, giving problems with loose
    cables etc.
    
    /johan

    AArrrgghhhhhh, the floppy drive is still causing problem....
    
    Now I have a better picture what's happening:
    Yesterday evening I ran a rpm-program continously. Then I very, very gently
    began to tap on the front. When I touched the ejectbutton, the drive
    went nuts exactly as described earlier. Also when I tapped the visible
    part of the floppy in the front, the same symptom showed up.
    
    Gentlemen,
    
    I can see two micro-switches at the bottom of the drive. Is one of
    them a "floppy in place" switch? 
    How is it used to control the spindle?
    
    I strongly suspect that the logic checking whether a floppy is present
    is bad. Am I right?
    
    /johan
    
    

Interesting, I just fixed one of these switches in my drive this weekend.
The problem I had was that the OS wasn't detecting write protection and disk
changes. It turned out that my write protect switch was missing a spring and
retainer.

On my drive the write protect switch was near the front of the drive (ie:
near the eject button). I don't know what the other switch is for, which was
near the back of the drive (ie: on the end near the heads).

If you have an ohm meter just measure the resistance across each switch (make
sure the system and drive are turned off), popping the disk in and out should
make the switches turn on and off (on will be 0 ohms, off will probably be
less than infinity, mine was a couple thousand ohms). If one of the switches
goes on and off when you wiggle the disk then check to see that that switch is
securely mounted. If it's mounted fine then perhaps the switch needs to be
replaced.

The switches in my drive were reed switchs with a small magnet that got pushed
against the read switch when the drive was in. I assume they used reed
switches instead of micro switches because they wear longer.

	Ray    

    Tnx Ray!
    Yes, it WAS the switch (actually two switches housed together)!
    
    I took the switch apart and found the problem. But....guess what....
    Yes, I had the luck to lose one the springs......;-)
    
    This mean that I no longer have any WP detection!!
    
    The drive seem ok now though.
    
    Anybody having a WE/MP-switch to a Epson in the junk-drawer???? 
    ===============================================================
    /johan