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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: michiel on July 01, 2004, 04:50:58 PM

Title: A500 floppy problem
Post by: michiel on July 01, 2004, 04:50:58 PM

Ok, i'm not an expert on the amiga hardware but i have a problem.
i found my amiga 500 back after years of negligence. i used to work fine, workbench and several games.
but now, when i turn it on, it displays the hand with the floppy. I put any floppy in and the drive spins (and the drive head moves to position) but it suddenly stops after 3 sec.
Are just all my floppys gone blank (after the years) or is are the drive heads broken.
PS Can i rewrite the workbench floppy on my PC? or write it on an IBM formatted floppy???

thanx
mich

Title: Re: A500 floppy problem
Post by: pjhutch on July 01, 2004, 05:03:47 PM

Replacing the floppy drive is probably the best way to get games/wb loaded again.
Not, its not possible to read or write Amiga disks on the standard PC controller. You need third party h/w such as a Catweasel to use Amiga disks.

Title: Re: A500 floppy problem
Post by: bloodline on July 01, 2004, 05:07:00 PM

I have found that after 14 years quite a few of my old Floppies are unreadable/developed checksum errors.

Title: Re: A500 floppy problem
Post by: BoingBoss on July 02, 2004, 02:12:32 AM

Hi michiel,

Try cleaning the drive heads first with a heads cleaning disk before replacing the disk drive.  If that does not work then I do happen to have a spare Amiga 500 disk drive that I could sell to you cheap.     :-D

Title: Re: A500 floppy problem
Post by: blobrana on July 02, 2004, 02:28:24 AM

Hum,

my ungamely solution (er, once you`ve fitted or fixed a new amiga floppy)would be to connect the amiga to the pc via a lap-link cable and burn all your floppys to CDROM...

Er, of course, you would have to fit a CD to the amiga to play them....(which is very easy)

i imagine the burned CDs will last longer than the new floppys...



 :-)

Title: Re: A500 floppy problem
Post by: Hyperspeed on July 02, 2004, 03:57:24 AM

I would do as BoingBoss reccomends, giving the floppy drive a cleaning
diskette might wipe any particles off the drive head allowing it to
see the disk you load.

Try this program on Aminet:
ftp://de.aminet.net/pub/aminet/disk/misc/Scrub.lha

What this does is recognise what drive you have a cleaning disk in and
then it sends the head back and forth across the cloth inside so that
your drive head gets cleaned thoroughly and at all angles.

Similarly if you have put old VHS casettes into a VCR I can't
reccomend enough the white Scotch cleaning casettes you see in
electronics shops. You press PLAY |> and a test-screen appears and you
rewind and repeat the process until the display is clean.

Usually what happens is rust, oxidisation etc. builds up as well as
smoke, cooking fumes etc. You may just smell your sausages cooking in
the kitchen but over 20 years that could equate to a lot of fat
molecules getting into your machine.

Ever wondered why Playstation owners always moan about their blue
discs not loading, even though they're on 20 Marlboro a day?

:-D :-D :-D :-D

;-)