giobbi
Veteran Member
Hi all,
I've recently got three Epson SD-600 5.25" floppy drive: one is surely broken, one that doesn't read the disks, and the third one seems to work, more or less. I will start to talk about this third one.
(btw I'm testing them in a Ms-Dos 6.22 environment)
In first, it works as B: but not as A:. I tried to swap it from B: to A: with a blind change into the jumper bank (SS1 from 1 to 0, see below the jumper table) and now it's checked at boot as A: drive (of course, bios was set accordingly) but if I ask a DIR when it's set as B:, it works; same thing when it's set as drive A:, I got a general failure on drive A: -- of course with the same floppy disk inserted. Maybe, in order to change it from B: to A: there's more to change into the jumper banks..?
However I switched it to B: again.
Another issue: I can't format a floppy. I tried many floppy that *seemed* to work (since they're old floppies, I can't be sure they are really good). I always get an error about invalid 0 track, bad disk. Any disk content is erased during this attempt to format.
I tried in the following ways (default, it tries to format 360k):
format b: /u /F:1.2
format b: /u /F:360
format b: /u /F:180
format b: /u /4
format b: /u
format b:
Honestly I don't remember how I used to format 5.25" floppy disk, I believe the last one I formatted was in the beginning / middle of '1990s... ^_^
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About the unit that doesn't read the disks: the disk spins, the heads move, but I get a seek error reading drive B:.
----------------------------------------
Now, this kind of drive has six jumper banks, so I'm trying to understand their meaning. I'm copying below the jumpers scheme:
SS1 - options: 0 - 1 (ON) - 2 (off) - 3 (off)
SS2 - options: DA - HL - RA : missing jumper bank (no jumper on the PCB)
SS3 - options: D / S (set to S)
SS4 - options: MH/ML (set to ML)
SS5 - options: RC (off) - DC (ON)
SS6 - options: S1 (ON) - S2 (ON) - S3 (off)
The questions for you are the following ones:
1) Do you know if I'm going wrong formatting, or is there anything I can try / clean / lube / check / etc. in order to solve that issue?
2) Have you any clue about what every jumper bank means? I also wish to find a way at least to swap it from B: to A:
3) What about the seek error on the drive that doesn't read the disks?
4) Any other clue about old floppy disk drive care, cleaning and refurbishing are welcome!
thank you
Giobbi
I've recently got three Epson SD-600 5.25" floppy drive: one is surely broken, one that doesn't read the disks, and the third one seems to work, more or less. I will start to talk about this third one.
(btw I'm testing them in a Ms-Dos 6.22 environment)
In first, it works as B: but not as A:. I tried to swap it from B: to A: with a blind change into the jumper bank (SS1 from 1 to 0, see below the jumper table) and now it's checked at boot as A: drive (of course, bios was set accordingly) but if I ask a DIR when it's set as B:, it works; same thing when it's set as drive A:, I got a general failure on drive A: -- of course with the same floppy disk inserted. Maybe, in order to change it from B: to A: there's more to change into the jumper banks..?
However I switched it to B: again.
Another issue: I can't format a floppy. I tried many floppy that *seemed* to work (since they're old floppies, I can't be sure they are really good). I always get an error about invalid 0 track, bad disk. Any disk content is erased during this attempt to format.
I tried in the following ways (default, it tries to format 360k):
format b: /u /F:1.2
format b: /u /F:360
format b: /u /F:180
format b: /u /4
format b: /u
format b:
Honestly I don't remember how I used to format 5.25" floppy disk, I believe the last one I formatted was in the beginning / middle of '1990s... ^_^
----------------------------------------
About the unit that doesn't read the disks: the disk spins, the heads move, but I get a seek error reading drive B:.
----------------------------------------
Now, this kind of drive has six jumper banks, so I'm trying to understand their meaning. I'm copying below the jumpers scheme:
SS1 - options: 0 - 1 (ON) - 2 (off) - 3 (off)
SS2 - options: DA - HL - RA : missing jumper bank (no jumper on the PCB)
SS3 - options: D / S (set to S)
SS4 - options: MH/ML (set to ML)
SS5 - options: RC (off) - DC (ON)
SS6 - options: S1 (ON) - S2 (ON) - S3 (off)
The questions for you are the following ones:
1) Do you know if I'm going wrong formatting, or is there anything I can try / clean / lube / check / etc. in order to solve that issue?
2) Have you any clue about what every jumper bank means? I also wish to find a way at least to swap it from B: to A:
3) What about the seek error on the drive that doesn't read the disks?
4) Any other clue about old floppy disk drive care, cleaning and refurbishing are welcome!
thank you
Giobbi