Is my 1571 disk drive broken?

[Sega dude]

I have a Commodore 1571 disk drive for my C=128. GEOS won't boot. It worked fine earlier yesterday. I get the error in the screenshot below. Also a diskette that worked fine before doesn't anymore. I typed LOAD"*",8,1 just like it said on the diskette and it says ?FILE NOT FOUND ERROR. Could I have damaged it when I was bring it up from the basement? I moved it with a diskette inside. I didn't drop it or anything and I worked 2 nights ago. Is it broken? Will the 1541 drive work with the C=128?



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[administrator]

Hi Sega;

I am not a 1571 expert but the errors will be very similar to 1541's and we do have this http://www.commodore.ca/manuals/Tips/1541_tips.htm troubleshooting guide.

If I had to guess, I would say it is reading header information but then failing on the data load which might be an alignment issue. Allignment disks are quite easy to source these days, if you do not have one.

[Sega dude]

Hi Sega;

I am not a 1571 expert but the errors will be very similar to 1541's and we do have this http://www.commodore.ca/manuals/Tips/1541_tips.htm troubleshooting guide.

If I had to guess, I would say it is reading header information but then failing on the data load which might be an alignment issue. Allignment disks are quite easy to source these days, if you do not have one.

Does this look like an alignment issue? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lyC6hSwjE0

[retro-dood]

Hi both of you,
I've been having quite the same problem with my 1541 i just got like 2 days ago. I bought a good as new c64 v-1541 with not a single trace of dust or any stains at all, very well preserved. The night I bought it I spent hours looking throught the disks that came with it, playing the games and all. Yesterday while I was playing with it, some of the disks that were playing fine the day before kept giving me "?FILE NOT FOUND ERROR" messages. And now ALL my disks won't read. No matter if I * and RUN them or $ and LIST them. I always get that error message and that machine gun sound with the blinking red LED.
So you're saying that if it's an allignment issue I need an allignment disk?
thx

[rbernardo]

First of all, clean the heads to see if that solves the problem.

[retro-dood]

I cleaned the heads, at first my red LED didn't blink so it seemed ok, but i had symbols, letters and numbers appearing randomly at the upper part of the screen then it froze. And when I tried to run a performance test with my test demo disk, it was back to the ?FILE NOT FOUND ERROR message again and the track 0 stop rattle sound.
And now i'm reading an article once published in the Transactor on how to realligne it myself and wondering if it's my last hope.

[retro-dood]

Oh ok wow, nevermind... I tried another disk and it's working better than i've ever seen a c64 working! Thanks and I just hope it will stay like that tho!