B-drive problem

[markiewj]

Hello everybody,

I would like ask you about the question deals Amstrad cpc 6128 disc drive.
I have one CPC and I would like connect 3" internal drive (buyed on ebay) as the B external drive (on cp/m 3).
I made the 26pins to 34 pins cable, power cable directly from the motherboard and connected the drive. However, after about 10-15 minutes of good work I obtained the error - track 0 sector 0 missing address mark. I noted that through the using, the red diode was high lighting.

Could any help me what is the problem? What happened and exist any solution?

Best regards
Tomasz

[Devilmarkus]

Hello Tomasz,
I guess, detailled photos can help us to detect something bad.

Are you sure, your 26 to 34 pin cable is accurate and also is not inverted?

[Bryce]

Well if it worked for 10-15 minutes, then the cables were correctly built and the right way around. When you say you powered it directly from the motherboard, do you mean you soldered new lead from the CPC mainboard? If so, this might be your problem. That might be a bit too much power to take from the PCB. Does the A: drive still work ok?

Try powering the external drive from a different supply.

Bryce.

[markiewj]

Hello,

Thanks for your suggestion. Below there are the images of our cable.








I get the power from the cable connected with the drive A. It still works OK.
Also, when I used 3.5" floppy ad the drive B both well work. I used this configuration to copy some programs and games from PC to CPC.
However, for some programs (in cp/m) two disk are prefer. To facilitate disc's operation I would like build the 3" B-drive.

The photographed drive works about 10-15 minutes. I don't know what it happened. However, the drive integrated circuits was very hot.

I was also connected this drive instead the A drive but still doesn't run.
Additionally, I have a possibilities replace It with the other (not used) ones but I do not want damage to another drive.

Do you have any suggestion?

Regards
Tomasz

[gerald]

I get the power from the cable connected with the drive A. It still works OK.
Also, when I used 3.5" floppy ad the drive B both well work.

Do you have any suggestion?

Have you checked that power cable is properly wired for 3" floppy. The 12v and 5V wires are swapped between 3" and 3.5" drives.

If you regulary swap 3" and 3.5" drive, you really have to be carefull with the power cable being properly wired.

[markiewj]

I used TEAC FD-235HD 3.5" floppy.
My power cable has 12V on the transmission tape side. I measured its and in the internal A floppy it is the same. I use this voltage order in both cases.

However, I'm not sure that have I connected the ready signal. My transmission tape has only 25 wires. Is it possible that missing this signal can damage 3" floppy?

[db6128]

No, Ready being disconnected should just mean that the CPC would report the drive to be empty.

[markiewj]

Hello all,
I read other topics about DDI and I used trick with power-off when the coil scan disc surface.
And yes! now floppy works good.

I would like noted that probably the floppy problem was caused by the use of poorly formatted floppy disk.

Very thanks for forum help.

Tomasz