Disk boot problems A500, WB1.3

Hi,
i just got my old AMIGA 500 from the attic and started it, it wored fine. But now, two days later, it won't boot my disks. It always asks for the 1.3 workbench, but as i put it (or any other disk) into the drive, it tries to load the disk (you can hear the rotation of the drive for a few seconds) but rejects every disk and asks for the Workbench again.  The disks are all OK (they worked 2 days before). I know this problem from former times, but i have now no idea what to do.

Do you know what to do ?? It seems to be a common problem... Thanx for helping out.

Gerdi

[Ilwrath]

Do you know what to do ?? It seems to be a common problem...

Hmm... There's a few common problems that can cause this...

Dirty drive?  Try one of the 3.5" drive cleaner kits...

Floppy drive cable loose?  Check the inside of the machine to make sure everything's plugged in well...

Floppy drive finally die?  Floppy drive misaligned?  (Have another machine somewhere you can run a known good disk?)

Do you have a virus checker? (Lamer exterminator or something mighta zapped your disks for you)  Again, another machine to test on, make sure those disks are still good.  

You need to make sure it's not a software failure before chasing the hardware, I suppose.

[Castellen]

Yep, I'd also suggest checking the floppy drive and it's 34 way cable.

Some people have mentioned ICs becomming loose in their sockets and
causing intermittent problems.  Apparently pressing them down in their
sockets often helps, most of the ICs in the A500 are socketed.
Reseating them (pulling them out and putting back in) can also help as
connectors are "wiped" when moved apart.

Anthony.

I've had this problem before on my A1000. It would ask for the WB 1.3 disk, and I'd put it in and it would reject it. Turned out just to be a very dirty floppy drive. A floppy drive cleaning floppy fixed it. ;-)

Oh yeah, also taking the front off and blowing inside it cleared alot of dust out lol. :-P

I'll try to clean up that old buddy. Thanx 4ur help !!!

[whabang]

I allways check for chip creep when I have problems with old computers.
If it doesn't help to clean the thing, try pressing all socketed chips firmly into their sockets.