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Tandy 1000TL Hard Drive Fault

Since this is an XTA drive, I'd be very curious to see if it responds to any I/O port reads. It could be that there's simply a problem with the interface board--that would be easy to fix.
 
Since this is an XTA drive, I'd be very curious to see if it responds to any I/O port reads. It could be that there's simply a problem with the interface board--that would be easy to fix.

The noise it makes in the video I posted makes me think its something wrong with the drive itself.

I found this video on YouTube explaining how to possibly repair the drive by manually moving the heads but I'm not overly keen to try it on such an old hard drive:-


Another option would be to leave the drive power-up for a long duration and see if that brings it back to life.
The only thing is I'm worried about if it causes permanently damage the platter and the data on them.
 
I found this video on YouTube explaining how to possibly repair the drive by manually moving the heads but I'm not overly keen to try it on such an old hard drive:-

If you absolutely need the data off of it, that's usually what you need to do. I've gotten data off of a few Plus hardcards this way; just don't expect to repair the drives to full working order since the problem usually reoccurs.
 
With old MiniScribe and Western Digital 3.5" stepper motor drives, you can often get them unstuck and working again by rotating the thing that says "DO NOT ROTATE" on it. :) That's the rack-and-pinion assembly that moves the heads across the platters, so you can accomplish the same thing as the video above, without needing to take apart the drive.
 
Here's something I've always wanted to ask: What happens if you turn the spindle the wrong way? Will you irreparably damage the might-have-been-able-to-save-that drive, or does it not matter?
 
Here's something I've always wanted to ask: What happens if you turn the spindle the wrong way? Will you irreparably damage the might-have-been-able-to-save-that drive, or does it not matter?

Some drives actually rotate slightly backwards on their own when they're first starting up or coming to a stop. No harm is done. :)
 
Thanks for everyone’s replies it has been very useful.

It seems that it’s probably the heads are stuck on the platter.
I could dismantle the drive but it’s probably not worth the risk or the effort to try and resurrect a 25 years old hard drive.
As a direct replacement is impossible using modern hard drives I was thinking what could be used as an alternative solution.

Therefore, I was thinking is it worth starting a new thread about using the TL (or any other old computer) as a diskless computer (using something like bootp) where all the programmes are stored centrally and loaded from there?
 
]To get the drive spinning again, just rotate the stepper motor spindle (red arrow pointing to it) back and forth a few times, right before powering it up. :)

tandydrive.jpg
 
...and if that doesn't work, unscrew the lid and rotate the disk by hand (don't touch the magnetic surface though). If you're lucky the heads will let go, and it'll go back to normal.

If i was stuck for a hard drive, I'd probably start by looking at the XT-IDE CF card or similar solution (or even just the ROM + CF card + adapter on XTA??). That way it can boot itself, then you can add an optional network later, so it's not reliant on a server to run but it can use it if it's there. If a network boot thread did start up I would enjoy the read though - not something that gets done a lot.
 
Yes, try these ideas mentioned since you're out of options. When you have the platters exposed, move quickly and keep in mind that dust particles are raining down on them so pick the cleanest area you can and maybe hold the cover above it like an umbrella as you turn the spindle. Put the cover back on as quick as you can.

Larry G
 
]To get the drive spinning again, just rotate the stepper motor spindle (red arrow pointing to it) back and forth a few times, right before powering it up. :)

Thanks for the suggestion. I will try this over the weekend and report back how I got on.

I will also have a think about the diskless thread and what project might interest people to bring new life to some old computers
 
Some drives actually rotate slightly backwards on their own when they're first starting up or coming to a stop. No harm is done. :)

Turning it did allowed it to boot from hard drive.
But with read/seek errors and when going to directory and running dir. :(



I ran shiptrak and powered off thinking this would reset the heads but it gave the same results.
 
Leave it running for a half-hour to let it fully warm up and try again. These old stepper-motor drives are not temperature compensated, and if somebody wrote data to it when the drive was hot, it may not read correctly when the drive is cold!
 
Seconded. I recently ran into this with two drives, one of which had a thermal "sweet spot" that let me read data off of it for 5 minutes before it got too warm and I couldn't read from it any more. Took an entire day of power/thermal cycling to get all of the data off of it (but it was totally worth it).
 
Thanks for your suggestions.
On Sunday I will connect the external power supply and leave it on for a few hours before trying it again in the computer.
Hopefully it will start working again.
 
I've tried to the hard drive powered on for a few hours before connecting it to the computer.
It's been through a number of power cycles using external power adapter.
With the same result of seek errors when loading a small exe file or doing a type on a text file.

The drive sounds a bit more responsive than when I first tried and used it.
But the sounds it makes now is like the heads are not responding as it should which are causing the read and seek errors.

It as worth a try.
At least the computer itself it working. Which I think is a testament to Tandy's engineering and build quality.

So 1000TL will live on to be used in a future project. :)
 
I have a TL with two of these Hard Drives. The Drives have failed and I replaced them with an XT-IDE Compact Flash card
 
The drive sounds a bit more responsive than when I first tried and used it.
But the sounds it makes now is like the heads are not responding as it should which are causing the read and seek errors.

The symptoms somewhat look like the drive needs a fresh low level format. Generally people say "NO!" to a low level format with an IDE drive. However that's exactly what I did on my Tandy TL/2, and it's not unheard of with early IDE drives. I used the original Tandy tool (HSECT ?) which not only performed the format, but also setup the configuration record so the system would see it as a 40MB drive.

In my case the drive was a Seagate ST157A/X with a "Do Not Low Level Format" sticker on it.

Worst case is a non-working drive remains non-working. But I wouldn't toss a drive without attempting to rewrite the factory format - if anybody is, I'll pay postage!
 
I have a TL with two of these Hard Drives. The Drives have failed and I replaced them with an XT-IDE Compact Flash card

I didn't realise that a compact flash card would work on such an old computer.
Had a look and there is a 8-bit ISA self-assembly kit produced by a company called lo-tech.
Is there any commercially available 8-bit cards being produced?

Does MS-DOS 3.3 work ok with large compact flash card as long as the disk is partition to the maximum FAT16 supported size?
 
The symptoms somewhat look like the drive needs a fresh low level format. Generally people say "NO!" to a low level format with an IDE drive. However that's exactly what I did on my Tandy TL/2, and it's not unheard of with early IDE drives. I used the original Tandy tool (HSECT ?) which not only performed the format, but also setup the configuration record so the system would see it as a 40MB drive.

In my case the drive was a Seagate ST157A/X with a "Do Not Low Level Format" sticker on it.

Worst case is a non-working drive remains non-working. But I wouldn't toss a drive without attempting to rewrite the factory format - if anybody is, I'll pay postage!

I remember running HESCT command when I wanted to clean the card drive not realising I should use the format command. :oops:
The manager of the Tandy shop was nice enough to sort it out for me. :thumbsup:

I'll keep the hard drive until I got some time to look at it sort it out properly.
 
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