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TEAC FD-55GFR 7193-U won't read or write

H

Half-Saint

Experienced Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2004
Messages
322
Location
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Hi,

I recently pulled the drive from storage only to find out that it doesn't work. When I try to access the drive I get "General failure reading drive B:".

I cleaned both, the rails and the heads. During boot, the LED does light up and I can see the head move correctly back and forth all the way.

Anything else I can look at?

Cheers
 
I can think of one or two things, but without any specific diagnosis ("General failure" is a diagnostic message that's a catchall for everything from a bad controller to unrecognized media).

For example, are the heads securely in contact with the media? Have you configured the drive correctly? Have you told the BIOS that this is a 1.2M drive?

Boot DOS and bring up ImageDisk and see if you can't nail things down. IMD has both RPM and alignment tests--and doesn't pay attention to what the BIOS says the drive is.
 
Could be dust. Drive needs a blow-job. There are a couple of sensors that indicate that the disk is in and spinning, and if they're dusted up, then the drive will think there's no disk, or it's not spinning. A few sharp puffs (as dry as possible) into the front usually helps. If you do a couple, and try again, and the read process seems to get a bit further, then keep at it.

Geoff
 
Chuck(G) said:
I can think of one or two things, but without any specific diagnosis ("General failure" is a diagnostic message that's a catchall for everything from a bad controller to unrecognized media).

For example, are the heads securely in contact with the media? Have you configured the drive correctly? Have you told the BIOS that this is a 1.2M drive?

Boot DOS and bring up ImageDisk and see if you can't nail things down. IMD has both RPM and alignment tests--and doesn't pay attention to what the BIOS says the drive is.
Click to expand...

The only thing I've done is configure the drive in BIOS as 1.2M. Haven't touched any of the jumpers - currently DS1=closed.

I'll see, if I can do anything with ImageDisk and report back...
 
Half-Saint said:
I recently pulled the drive from storage only to find out that it doesn't work. When I try to access the drive I get "General failure reading drive B:".
Click to expand...
I would configure the drive as drive A just to remove one more variable from the equation. Put a known good drive in as A: and after you're sure that works OK put in the questionable drive and see how it responds. It's always better, easier and simpler to remove all variable possible when testing something.
 
Stone said:
I would configure the drive as drive A just to remove one more variable from the equation. Put a known good drive in as A: and after you're sure that works OK put in the questionable drive and see how it responds. It's always better, easier and simpler to remove all variable possible when testing something.
Click to expand...

I already tried it as A: and it didn't work. I then used a known good 3.5" as A: and the problematic 5.25" as B: so that I could boot from A: into DOS. I'm not going to boot from CF and see what Imagedisk comes up with.

Ah, I tried cleaning the sensors as suggested and it didn't help either.
 
FD-55GFR needs three jumpers installed:
* D1
* FG
* DC short with RY

Edit: there seem to exist various variants of FD-55GFR, with different jumpers, I'm not sure if my settings are applicable for you, in case of doubt post a photo of your jumpers...
 
Last edited:
Unless you are absolutely certain that this computer will work with two floppy drives, test the drive as the A: drive. Having a BIOS option to set the floppy type for B: is not a guarantee that your floppy controller chip is actually wired up to run two floppy drives -- later clones tended to leave the wiring for the B: drive disconnected.

And once you have it working as the A: drive, you should be able to move it to the other connector on the floppy cable and it will work as the B: drive (assuming your floppy cable has the expected twist).

-ken
 
If the drive seeks/selects during the POST floppy test, it's connected.

Is your GFR one that requires a terminator if it's the only drive? As has been mentioned, there are several varieties of the PCB. Earlier ones tend to have more options.
 
Two drives are supported by the BIOS so I don't see why it wouldn't work.

Right now, the 3.5" drive is at the end of the cable (A: ) and TEAC is second (B: ).

I used q-tips and alcohol to clean the heads as well as the sensors.

I'll make a decent pic of the jumpers later today.

Cheers
 
Half-Saint said:
I used q-tips and alcohol to clean the heads...
Click to expand...
That's not nearly as effective or safe as the disk method. The head(s) can be damaged or mis-aligned by applying lateral pressure accidently. Also, with the disk inserted, the clamping pressure provides thorough cleaning and I've seen drives that required several attempts, even with the disk method, to achieve a useable drive. There is just no substitute for the correct tool.
 
Stone said:
That's not nearly as effective or safe as the disk method. The head(s) can be damaged or mis-aligned by applying lateral pressure accidently. Also, with the disk inserted, the clamping pressure provides thorough cleaning and I've seen drives that required several attempts, even with the disk method, to achieve a useable drive. There is just no substitute for the correct tool.
Click to expand...
In my experience, q-tips and alcohol are more effective than cleaning diskettes. That said though, for me, there is a time and place. If I suspect that the heads are lightly dirty, I certainly do not want to waste time opening up the computer and then removing the floppy drive then possibly (depending on make/model) opening up the drive. I am going to use a cleaning diskette, which as you pointed out, also reduces the risk of damage. I like doing things the easy way.

But if I am confident that very dirty heads are the problem cause (i.e. drive was working minutes ago, and failed as soon as a floppy from a newly opened box was used), and one or more uses of a cleaning diskette does not appear to be achieving anything, then I am 'going in' with the q-tips and alcohol.
 
modem7 said:
But if I am confident that very dirty heads are the problem cause (i.e. drive was working minutes ago, and failed as soon as a floppy from a newly opened box was used),...
Click to expand...
This is a scenario that I have encountered over and over, hundreds of times.

modem7 said:
...and one or more uses of a cleaning diskette does not appear to be achieving anything,...
Click to expand...
But this is something I haven't experienced. I have always had 100% success with the disk method, even if it took repeated attempts in some cases. But normally, one brief pass with the cleaning disk results in a fully functioning drive once again, in less than one minute, with no work or sweat. IOW, I have never had to remove or open a floppy and manually use a Q-tip on it. :)
 
Okay, I see nothing wrong with your jumper settings. Again, let's see what IMD says about the drive. I assume that you have a formatted disk to test with (density doesn't matter)? And you have a spare blank floppy to check writing functions with?
 
Chuck(G) said:
Okay, I see nothing wrong with your jumper settings. Again, let's see what IMD says about the drive. I assume that you have a formatted disk to test with (density doesn't matter)? And you have a spare blank floppy to check writing functions with?
Click to expand...

I mostly have DS/DD floppies but I also have a few HD floppies. I can format them on a 486 that has both, 5.25" and 3.5" disk drives.

Can you give me some concrete instructions regarding the use of ImageDisk. I installed it and messed about but couldn't figure out much.

Thanks.
 
The instructions for IMD are actually pretty good if you read through them.

The important thing to remember is that IMD works through the hardware directly and doesn't care what your BIOS or operating system says.

I'd start with formatting up a disk on your 486 (data doesn't really matter) and using IMD to see if you get anything using the alignment test. It could be that the alignment of the Teac is simply borked and the heads aren't where they think they are. Also, using the same disk, try a "Test RPM" operation. Either will let us know if *anything* is being read.

If you strike out on that one, try a format operation; since you have DSDD disks, you'll want to format two sides, MFM, 300Kbps, 9 sectors of 512 bytes for 80 cylinders, interleave 1. See if anything gets written to the floppy.
 
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