Common Atari 1050 disk drive faults

[dun...@aol.com]

I have a drive here that doesn't do anything when switched on. The
power LED lights and that's it. Is there anything that is particularly
likely to have failed or could it be almost anything?

Thanks everyone!

[Rick Cortese]

Dun...@aol.commercial wrote:

The 12V supply is the most frequent fault. Atari used a voltage doubler
and the diodes in the middle of the BIG capacitors come loose from
thermal shock/over heating.

There are a few other things that are likely. The 1050 should have the
drive busy light come on everytime you close the door latch.

What you should try is having the drive on, a disk in it, and hooked up
to the computer. Turn on the computer and see if you get an abnormal
boot noise like a screech. If it gives an abnormal noise then at least
the computer and drive are trying to talk to each other. If it doesn't
make a difference with or w/o a drive then you have something seriously
wrong like a bad disk controller chip.

[Sid Pacman]

On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 at 14:28 -0700, DunxUK at aol dpt commercial
scribbled:
->I have a drive here that doesn't do anything when switched on. The
->power LED lights and that's it. Is there anything that is particu-
->larly likely to have failed or could it be almost anything?

Is it hooked up to an Atari 8-bit computer? Is it set as drive 1
or something else? Have you tried to load a disk from it or read a
disk in it? More info would be helpful.
--
>>>----------------------------------------------<<<
>>> david moeser -- erasmus39 on yahoo <<<
>>> Censornati, Ohio - USA <<<
>>>----------------------------------------------<<<
* ATARI -- Love it or leave it! *

(Headers munged to foil spammers; real info in taglines)

[dun...@aol.com]

Thanks Sid. When switched on the power light comes on. Everything else
has no effect. Opening and closing the gate, inserting and removing
disks and attaching and booting to an Atari have no effect. At no point
does the drive attempt to spin, illuminate its busy light or move the
heads. The Atari never recognises an attached device regardless of the
position of its device switches. It just remains silent and still.

In fact if it wasn't for the power light the first thing I would have
checked would have been the plug!

If the power doubler diodes have failed would the power light still
illuminate or does it take it's juice from after the power doubler?

Thanks again everyone!

[Thomas Richter]

Hi,

> If the power doubler diodes have failed would the power light still
> illuminate or does it take it's juice from after the power doubler?

No, it takes the 5V pass from the power supply, not the 12V pass via
the voltage doubler circuit. Thus, power is lid regardless of the
doubler circuit diodes. You'll find them in the middle rear part
of the drive, right between three large capacitors.

So long,
Thomas

[Sid Pacman]

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 at 11:11 -0700, Dun...@aol.commercial epistolated:
->When switched on the power light comes on. Everything else has no
->effect. ... inserting and removing disks and attaching and booting
->to an Atari have no effect. At no point does the drive attempt to
->spin, illuminate its busy light or move the heads. The Atari never
->recognises an attached device regardless of the position of its de-
->vice switches. It just remains silent and still.

Have you read the FAQ file that's posted on this newsgroup? It's
likely to have information that'll help you.

--
>>>----------------------------------------------<<<
>>> david moeser -- erasmus39 on yahoo <<<
>>> Censornati, Ohio - USA <<<
>>>----------------------------------------------<<<

* "All Indus -- All The Time!" *