I have an Apple IIe, for which I lost my original drive. I bought a replacement off of eBay, which seemed to have been tested.
I have been trying to get up and running tonight, and though I was doing fairly well - I was able to, with ADTPro, INIT disks, format them, and load on several games. Then all of a sudden, an angry perpetual regggkgkgk - reggkgkgkgkg - regkkgkgkkgk sound when I popped in one of my freshly made disks. The floppy has been temperamental the remainder of the night - I've gone from not being able to boot, to booting from the ADTPro disk but not being able to list/format the disks without it hanging in perpetual soft spinning to a repeat of the regggkgkgk - reggkgkgkgkg - regkkgkgkkgk. I cleaned the head, and it is still angry and temperamental. Heck, now even worse, as now the ADTPro disk is no longer booting - just the familiar and expected ckckckckckck at boot, then a perpetual tick-tick-tick-tick after that. Damn!!
Here is my hardware rundown:
Apple IIe 607-0164-M
Super Serial Card 670-8020-A
Disk Controller 655-0101-B
80 Column/64K Expansion 820-0067-B
Apple 5.25 Drive A9M0107
I'm running the latest v2.0.0 ADTPro, and have been using newly bought 3M DS/DD disks.
Clean the drive's head gently until there are no more deposits on it from diskette magnetic material.
Yep, did that. Cleaned it with isopropyl and foam-tip swaps, several times over just to be sure.
Can you take a video of the noises? That might help us make a distinction between hardware and other problems.
Sure! Videos tonight.
Make sure that there is enough pressure provided by the spring mechanism against/above the RW head. Also make sure you are not using HD diskettes.
I am just waiting for Speedy to come here and post a link to his website on how to diagnose problems with these disk drives. The problem is that if you are not an electronics technician, or if you do not have an oscilloscope then it's going to be hard to figure out what's wrong with the thing.
This page, right? http://www.appleii-box.de/appleboxAppleIIDiskService5.htm
I saw that, and I've cleared the PS as OK for now, and the DB type on the Uni/Duo disk connector precludes the common backwards-cable issue.
I do happen to be an electrical engineer, but I think I was looking for a qualitative diagnosis path to at least limit it to a smaller set of potential sites.
Then again, I found this: http://apple2online.com/web_documents/AppleService%20Technical%20Procedures%20-%20Apple%20DuoDisk%20KBS.pdf
I might surmise that speed adjustment was one of the few things left for a service tech that could be done on my drive, and that perhaps a check of this wouldn't hurt. So perhaps a question now is how to get a speed adjustment program up and running on my IIe without a good working drive?
Real sounds, not approximations with words, would help.
Flip the drive over (with the cover removed) and look at it under fluorescent light while it's spinning. The test pattern will appear stationary. But speed adjustment, unless it was wholly out of whack, would not keep you from initting a new disk - because the drive would be in agreement with itself even if it were not in agreement with disks from the rest of the world.
Don't need one.
Open up the drive and turn it over. See the radial spokes printed on the label on the pulley - one is marked 50 and one is marked 60? Those are strobe markers that work under a fluorescent light. The 60 spokes will appear stationary in the United States when the drive is spinning at the right speed, and 50 works in Europe.
How to get the drive spinning, you ask? Well, you can just boot.
From a basic prompt, however, I think "POKE 49385,0" starts the drive motor, and "POKE 49384,0" stops it, but that might only be under DOS 3.3 - I don't remember and my Apple is at home.
Hope this helps,
Warr
This trick would work only under old conventional fluorescent wiring. Nowadays more complex solid-state step-up converters are used for each tube/lamp and these converters use much higher frequencies (dozens of kHz). Instead of disassembling the drive and wondering if your lighting/lamp would work I would recommend locksmith's speed disk utility or similar loaded from a working floppy drive.
Sorry for the delay in the videos and for your patience.
I will try the strobe trick with a turntable strobe I have. I don't have a working drive at this time - I have serial and a ADTPro cable setup though - I just haven't figured out how to get something like Locksmith on to the IIe with it and still have access to the disc drive. I actually bought this drive because I am lacking anything working, alas!
Videos forthcoming...
Damn! It works perfectly now. Even loaded Locksmith v5 from a floppy made on IIc from the 80's, and drive speed isn't far off. I tore the setup down, will try again.
Those 'D' type connectors can wear and the connections get a bit loose. This mainly happens because a lot of people are too lazy to snug up the screws. If you are deft with your hands, it is possible to tighten them up a bit using an dental pick on the female contacts.