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Commodore 1541-II Disk Drive Problems

C

Commodore64

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Apr 18, 2010
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Hello There, today I bought Commodore 64G computer with commodore 1541-II Disk drive, seller said that everything works fine, but here's the problem, I turn on disk drive and c64, insert floppy, type LOAD"*",8,1 then I get text: Searching for *, and nothing happens. Could it be that I just do something wrong? This is my first Commodore64 computer, so I am a newbie here.
 
I hope you know that loading takes ages ;)

So, actually, it should do nothing when it says "Loading". Sometimes it should finish loading and either start by itself or display "Ready".
 
The screen output should be something like this:
Code: 
LOAD"*",8,1
 
SEARCHING FOR *
LOADING
[... time elapses ...]
READY.

If you never get LOADING, something has gone bad. Does the floppy disk spin or will it sit silent? Are you certain you use a floppy disk formatted for a C64? Oh well, if it wasn't you would get an error message after a while.
 
Floppy disk spins, but I dont get a message "Loading", its always like "Searching for *" or something like that. Floppys I got from same guy I bougth C64 today, I tried various floppies, and same with all of them.
 
Last edited:
Describe what the floppy drive activity light does during this process, that is usually a good indicator of exactly what is wrong as well.
 
Don't remember how to diagnose the drives from that, but Carlsson and several others can. It *might* if I recall mean that the drive isn't spinning up and that you might need to replace or re-seat the belt that spins the drive, if this particular one has one, or else do some other manner of maintenance on the drive.
 
When you power on the drive, the drive spins and the green light is lit for a short while. Then it should stop and the light go out. Does your drive work this way, or is the green light permanently on and the drive is spinning even before you issued a command from the computer side?
 
One more question: if you disconnect the cable between computer and drive, does the drive behave the same? If it does, the fault is in the drive.

If you are "lucky", the problem is in the 5V line from the power supply. Those first generation 1541-II PSUs were of inferior quality and very often broke down. It delivers 5V DC to the electronics + 12V DC to the motor. If you have a multimeter, you can measure the lines:

Code: 
  ___
 /3 2\  1: +5V DC, 1A
|     | 2: Ground
|4   1| 3: Not connected
 \_^_/  4: +12V DC, 0.5 - 0.7A
As far as I understand, this is viewed from the front side, i.e. connector facing you. Obviously you would need the power supply to be plugged in while measuring the voltages so if you are unsure, ask someone to help you.

Possibly you will get slightly higher readings than those specified due to the power supply is not under load. However if you find the 5V line reads a very low voltage, it suggests to me it is broken. Those original power supplies are not suitable for repairing: hard to open, full of epoxy which will release nasty fumes. Depending how eager and technical you feel, you can take pretty much any power supply (e.g. from an old AT-style PC) and merge the drive part of the power cable onto.

However if you get good reads on the 5V line, the fault is somewhere inside the drive. Ray Carlsen has some diagnostics relating to the original 1541, but I think most of it applies to the 1541-II too.
http://personalpages.tds.net/~rcarlsen/cbm/1541chip.txt
http://personalpages.tds.net/~rcarlsen/cbm/fix1541.txt

Could it be as simple as the seller has multiple setups and accidentally supplied you with a bad power supply and/or floppy drive?
 
Thanks for help, guys. But unfortunately I dont have AT Style PC power supply, or multimeter. So, I think I gonna leave this floppy disk drive like that for a better times...
 
It's possible the drive is configured to be another device.

Change the 8 in LOAD"$",8 to 9, 10 and 11 and see if that works.

If that does work, there are dip switches on the back that will let you change it back to 8.
 
If I understand correctly, you turn on the computer and drive, the system stabilizes and then you attempt to read floppies. I also assume you have the drive cabled correctly to the computer. The 1541-II is just like a 1541 except that it's smaller, probably a little faster, and you can change the drive assignment with the switches on the back.

The switches on the back should be in the up position for drive 8, the default drive for a C64 software.

after you've confirmed the switches are both up, try

How to get a disk directory:
LOAD "$",8 [return] - if there are any files on the disk it will still say "loading, but when the drive lights go out, rather than type RUN, type LIST to get a directory of the diskette.

NOTE: each time you fail to get a disk directory to appear on the screen, it's best to power down everything wait 3 seconds and power everything back up again. There are other ways to re-initialize a system but for now just do that.

If after you try a number of disks that appear to have data on them yet nothing useful comes to the screen you should next try to format a diskette. Formatting a disk often fixes minor problems and make shake the heads free if they're stuck.

Insert a disk you don't care about getting overwritten into the drive. type the following command:

PRINT#15, "NEW:mydisk,01" [return]

Watch the disk lights. If you listen closely you can hear a click click click as each track is formatted. When the process is done (it will take a minute or two), power cycle the computer and try the disk directory command above on this disk. It will be blank, but you'll see "mydisk 01" on the screen more or less. You might find that now you can read other disks too.

Let us know how that goes.

Bill
 
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