Amstrad 464 + DDI-1

[phaerun]

Hello guys,


I am a new kiddy on the block and this is my first post so I will try to be as concise as possible. Yesterday I decided to look for my good old Amstrad 464 which I had not used for the past 22 yrs. Thank god I found it and even more surprisingly it was working fine.
Back then I had also bought a DDI-1 to connect to my Amstrad. After loading a couple of games from my tapes (which worked fine too) I decided to stick in the drive and see if my disks were also alive.


Plugged everything in, turned on first the drive and then the cpc. Both green and red lights were on. So I put in my cp/m 2.2 disk in and did a cat.
My amstrad did recognized the drive because it went to the drive but threw this "There is no disk present" error. It also makes some noise like the motor is rotating but it seems like something is loose in there and it is not really rotating the disk (at least that was my first assumption).


Anyway I was about to open it and see if I can find something. Any suggestions as to what might be  wrong will be highly appreciated.






Thank you in advance.

[steve]

It is likely that the drive belt needs to be replaced, you can get them on ebay.
The wiki will tell you how to do the job.

[phaerun]

thanks. the drive belt is the same as the one used for the 6128 internal drive right ?

[Bryce]

Yes.

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

Hello compatriot, and welcome


As I always say - it's a great feeling when one rediscovers their love from days of yore...


And indeed, the belt is the most likely culprit; even if there's other damage, the belt *will* need changing.

[dcdrac]

getting a 6128 in the post soon refurbed and working, got the drive on the old one fixed and on its way back, bought a working 464 just need an external drive for that and Bonzos super meddler

[phaerun]

I managed to find a working 6128 too     
so now i have both CPC 464 and 6128. A childhood dream came true.
Checked all my disks too and they are working fine. ALL of them. it is a miracle.

... and my drive belt arrived today so this weekend my 464 will have its drive back 

will start looking about 3.5 inch drives now because I am running low on 3 inch disks (have only like 2 blank) and i would like to copy all my tape games to a disk.

[phaerun]

update :

so yeah the belt was shredded to tiny pieces. I managed replaced it, even if the screw at the top that holds the little board with the two cables was destroyed and refused to come out (I guess some previous owner who replaced the belt, destroyed the screw head and/or I need a mechanical screwdriver).

Anyhow, my situation has been improved. From no disk present, it now returns "drive a: read fail.
I have it open so I see that the motor is rotating fine, the head is moving nicely too and the sound it does when attempting to read sounds good.
And I tried the disks yesterday on the 6218 and they are fine too.

Tried to clean up the head but it did not fix anything
=======================================================================================================
Epilogue :
after trying everything I could think of (and some of googling) nothing was working so I decided to do the obvious. took off and put back the data cable.
and ... it works 

cheers guys.

[Gryzor]

Heheh good one have fun! Also, while you're at it, do have a look at the HxC drive emulator!!

[phaerun]

Actually I am currently between that and fitting in a 3.5 inch drive but leaning towards HxC SD version.

Did you have any luck with your HxC ?

[Gryzor]

Seems to be working fine the last times I used it so maybe it was a connections issue...


Have you decided?

[phaerun]

yeah  I am getting the HxC sd version. will order it this week and hopefully will have it by Easter