Amstrad 9512 not booting up

[John Stuart]

Hi, I just got my old Amstrad 9512 out of the loft after many years. It powers up OK but won't load the startup CP/M. I just have a nice bright white screen and a rapid spinning noise. From what I have read here there could be a problem with a belt for the drive and it may have perished and need replacing? Or any other ideas what might have gone wrong?

 

[GeoffB17]

I'd suggest it's 95% likely to be what you suggest, the drive band has perished. So the motor is running, the pulley is spinning, but no 'drive' is getting to the disk which is NOT spinning.

After that, maybe the boot disk os ill, but I've found them usually so reliable, even well after the 'many years' you mention.

As soon as you open it up and the bits of the band drop out, you'll know for sure!

Geoff

 

[cj7hawk]

I'll add some other info here in case it helps others.

The 9512 has no boot rom, so it loads the raster controller and boot routines straight from disk via hardware - as a result, if there's no boot disk, then you won't even get a raster - just some freerunning of the screen, which looks aweful. Once it starts booting, you get lines down the screen until text comes up.

if you're not sure, it's a great time to get a Gotek, and boot from that - there's another thread on this forum that covers how to do that.

I would agree that your supposition is correct - though a Gotek can also help you troubleshoot if you have any floppy drive issues.

Good luck