Hope my A3000 floppy isn't damaged 8(

[Amiduffer]

A couple of weeks ago, a fellow was advertising a Chinnon HD floppy drive as part of a company liquidation and gave it for a buck.

I tried installing it last night, and I think it damaged something in the process.

The first time I hooked it up, upon booting, the floppy drive light stayed on constantly, without the wheel turning. The effect on WB, was that upon booting, the busy pointer appears, and besides moving the screen up and down, I can't do anything. Can't open any drawers, menu's don't work, etc.

Then I daisy chained my original floppy to the HD floppy, taking care to move the jumper from NODF1 to DF1, and the effect was the same, constant FD light on both drives, no WB activity.

I then moved a jumper on the HD floppy, and the light doesn't light, but nothing happened, the WB still was locked out. In the process of trying different combinations, something happened, where there was loud grinding sound from my two external floppy drives for second, and the clicking noise became a slightly bit louder.

I gave up at that point, and put the original floppy back, but now, the situation is, that the floppy drive light stays on constantly and the busy pointer effectively locks my WB up. I have to do the two mouse buttons before booting and choose boot from HD, and WB starts normally, although without the floppy, there are a few complications.

Did I damage a chip hooking up this HD floppy?

The external floppys are ok, I tried them on my A1200, and they work fine. But connected to the A3000, the clicking is slightly louder than normal.

[rkauer]

You do not damage your floppy by daisy chaining it.

But when you mess with the straps you could do it.

Take one of the external drives and convert it use internally in your 3000.

[Ral-Clan]

I don't know if this will help, but I was assembling an A3000 last night.  I mistakenly plugged the ribbon cable in upside down.  When you do that the floppy drive light is on all the time (and of course the drive doesn't work).  It did not damage the drive.

Check that all the little sensor pins near the front of the drive are depressed properly when a disk is in....and that they also pop up correctly when the disk is ejected.  One might just be stuck down.  They are black and are near the front of the drive (you can only see them when the Amiga's cover/faceplate is off.

[Amiduffer]

Ok, thanks.

I'd hate to think of taking my trusty 'ol original 1010 apart.  :-D

[TjLaZer]

Doing all that should not damage anything.  I have done that countless times.  Something else might be the problem.  Check all connection on MB and original drive.

[Amiduffer]

As a general rule, which side should the red trace on the floppy cable be on, when connected to a drive?

[Tomas]

@amiduffer
One silly question.. Did you put the ide cable on the right way? If you put it wrong way, then you experience this exact symptom you described.

[Amiduffer]

Tomas wrote:
@amiduffer
One silly question.. Did you put the ide cable on the right way? If you put it wrong way, then you experience this exact symptom you described.

Hard to tell sometimes with that forest of wires.

One good thing came out of this. I took my A1200 out of the closet, installed the 3.1 roms that were just sitting in the desk, took the 1992 80meg HD out and replaced it with a 1.2 gig, found out my WB install disks have errors, and learned how to use Diskmaster & SquirrelScsi setup disk to prep a HD.

[Olecranon]

by Amiduffer on 2007/2/19 17:16:38

As a general rule, which side should the red trace on the floppy cable be on, when connected to a drive?

It can vary by drive.  If you look behind or at the bottom of the drive (near the connector), it should give some indication which side pin 1 is on.  Just make sure the red stripe on the cable is to that side of the connector.

Now one thing can cause a problem with this scenario and that is if the floppy cable is plugged into the motherboard backwards.  I can't remember if the A3000 floppy connector is keyed so you can't reverse the cable.

If the Floppy light stays on solid, the cable is almost surely on backwards (or your off a set of pins).  Just reverse the cable and power up your computer again.

[rkauer]

Amiduffer wrote:
As a general rule, which side should the red trace on the floppy cable be on, when connected to a drive?

Red cable of the ribbon must be in the 1st pin of the drive and 1st pin of the FDD controller, logically.

[Amiduffer]

Great, I'll check that tonight! Thanks for all the great help.

@ rkauer. Your avatar is hilarious!   :lol:

[Ral-Clan]

Red cable of the ribbon must be in the 1st pin of the drive and 1st pin of the FDD controller, logically.

Unfortunately, PIN 1 is not always clearly marked on the sockets of the drives & many Amiga motherboards.

[rkauer]

ral-clan wrote:

Unfortunately, PIN 1 is not always clearly marked on the sockets of the drives & many Amiga motherboards.

If you look carefully in the MB you'll find a square "dot" where pin 1 is...

Other pins have round dots.... :smack:

[CLS2086]

Ok, i will help you.

Try your external drive in place of your (but take care to switch it to DS0 !!!!!!!!!)
After that you'll be able to know if you need to repair your motherboard or the drive !

1st of all get a electrical contact cleaner spray at a local store (WD40 is not so good !!!).
Spread some on the 'disc presence' switch, the HD 'mode disc switch', by the whole on the motor wheel
Turn the wheel, press the switches many times ans re-spread some on them.
Look the long displacement head's screw.
Take off all HARD SOLID AS ROCK dead grease !!!
With just one finger make this screw turn to move the head at least 3 complete cycle and take off all dead grease.
Turn you drive vertically
Spread some contact cleaner on the motor screw, and make at least a complete cycle, then do it again.

Now time to try !

You may have to move again the long screw displacing head at  least 3 times (yes there is still on dead grease on it).

9 times out of 10 it's sufficient for me.

 :rtfm:

[Amiduffer]

Ah! The culprit was slightly bent pins, pin 1 and the one above it, so that there was no contact. Once I straightened them out, everything was normal. First I put the HD floppy in alone, A3000 boots normally. Then daisy chained the original DD floppy to the HD floppy, and the 3000 boots normally.

Then, I tried formating some disks in the HD drive. If I put a HD floppy in, two icons appear. Choosing format from the menu from DF1 let me format in 880k, choosing format from MS1 let me format in 770k. But, once you did format, it only ran for 3 seconds before quiting. An error message came up saying that it couldn't initialize.

Where in WB, do you allow it to format at 1.4m? Is that something in the tooltypes? Why would it quit after you start formating?

Although CLS2086 has some good advice. I think my DF0 drive could use some maintenance. Half the time it works poorly.