Commodore 1541 question

[Olds-kool gamer]

Hi all,

This Commodore section wouldn’t be complete without a 1541 thread…

I seem to have collected quite a few of these over the years and there seems to be something wrong with most of them to one degree or another.

I decided to unpack my "New in box never touch by human hands" one.

Anyway after messing around with it with my newly acquired XM1541 cable to my horror it still made that trade mark machine gun noise.

It formats ok and reads any disks, copies or originals so I know unlike the rest of my 1541's it does not need aligning.

Is there any way this can be sorted out once and for all…

 

[carlsson]

Honestly, I've never owned and barely used a 1541. I went directly for 1541-II instead. I think it is much more silent and reliable?

You know, this picture was not drawn without a reason:
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=49453

 

[Olds-kool gamer]

Honestly, I've never owned and barely used a 1541. I went directly for 1541-II instead. I think it is much more silent and reliable?

You know, this picture was not drawn without a reason:
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=49453

I'll try and get one when the opportunity arises...

I can understand the 1541’s going bad after years of extended use but the one I’ve just unpacked, I know hasn’t been over used. That said the 1541’s are the early versions and for nostalgic reasons, I will always persevere with them.

These old Commodore Drives are like an old car you know you shouldn’t spend anymore money/time on them but you say to yourself "just one more time"

 

[cosam]

IIRC the machine-gunning happens when the drive tries to push the heads back past track 0. Unfortunately the 1541 can't detect track 0 on its own so it just keeps pushing to be sure. There are apperently programs you can run to help fix it, but with every format or read error the heads get whacked back again and the drive slowly starts misaligning itself. Wikipedia has a good write-up if you want more details.

 

[tezza]

Honestly, I've never owned and barely used a 1541. I went directly for 1541-II instead. I think it is much more silent and reliable?

I concur. I have a 1541-II and it's very quiet. In the past I've known folk with the original 1541. Those drives sometimes made the most alarming noises, even though they worked.

Tez

 

[Olds-kool gamer]

Right so can I deduce that even a perfectly aligned drive will eventually succumb to this problem?

i.e.

Sooner rather than later it will "machine gun" & the track 0 head-stop will get knocked out of place = FILE NOT FOUND error!

I think I will buy a 1541-II as without a "permanent solution" I’d rather not keep messing around with my 1541’s

 

[Unknown_K]

I have 4 or 5 1541s and they all work fine. Even if you mess up the alignment the drive can be fixed (I have yet to need to do that). Some copy protected games made the drives do some nasty noises.

 

[Olds-kool gamer]

I think all of mine have alignment issues to some degree or another but aligning them is not as straight forward as it seems, especially without the proper equipment.(& know how)

Once you start to mess around with these Mechs (especially with my past reputation of making things worse) I’ll probably make them totally unusable…

 

[Terry Yager]

Proper equipment

Proper equipment

My friend, Mark always used to keep a 3-lb. baby sledge on his workbench. If anyone were foolish enough to ask, he'd tell 'em it was his 'Commodore disk drive aligning tool'... (He wasn't sh!ttin' either, I've seen him use it!)

--T

 

[Olds-kool gamer]

My friend, Mark always used to keep a 3-lb. baby sledge on his workbench. If anyone were foolish enough to ask, he'd tell 'em it was his 'Commodore disk drive aligning tool'... (He wasn't sh!ttin' either, I've seen him use it!)

--T

I can well believe it :mrgreen: these things go out of alignment just by looking at them…:lookroun:

One positive thing I’ve discovered concerning my "as new one"
The reason why it "machine guns" is because I’m putting in a DOS formatted disk in so I assume it cannot read where the track starts.

Once formatted in the 1541 it works perfectly and all original disks work perfectly. So once I’ve formatted my remaining disks I should be alright.

 

[tezza]

Well, thats a positive thing. Should be ok for a few miles yet then.

Tez

 

[Olds-kool gamer]

Well, thats a positive thing. Should be ok for a few miles yet then.

Tez

Hi Tez,

I get the feeling the more disks I format the sooner it will get knocked out of alignment.

I’ve been searching EBay for a 1541-II, none at all in the UK...

Germany seems to have quite a few and quite regularly.
Prices are OK but shipping seems to be a bit steep. :lookroun:

 

[brain]

I guess I'm not seeing the issue.

All 1541 drives make the machine gun noise. The DOS format command actually makes the noise as part of the normal process.

As noted, anytime a read error is found, the drive will eventually fall back to slamming the head against the track 0 stop up to 35 (maybe 40) times (if the head was already at track 1).

There is a specific revision of the 1541-C, as I recall, that contains drive ROM code to read the Track 1 sensor, but it's not terribly common. CBM took that code out of the ROM later on.

Jim

 

[Bungo Pony]

How the heck did you guys get quiet 1541-II drives? The one I have is noisier than ANY of the regular 1541s I've owned.