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General Category => Technical support - Hardware related => Topic started by: sokot on 23:36, 19 May 25

Title: Disk station and incorrect drive belt replacement.
Post by: sokot on 23:36, 19 May 25
Hello,

I need help fixing my DDI 1 disk drive I replaced the belt in it and when I put it together it gets the message:
"Drive A: read fail"
sometimes it still says before it:
"Drive A: user 0"
I don't know if the station was functional before replacing the belt because I just acquired it. I don't know if I made a mistake because in order to get to the wheels and clean them well I took off the whole board including the red diode (laser?). I took a picture beforehand and screwed it as it was but I probably should not have touched it. WHAT can I do to fix this problem ? I am also attaching a video of how the head goes after the "cat" command.

Greetings and thank you for any help.

PS I cleaned the head with alcohol and lubricated the guides with silicone,
Floppy disks are working tested on another disk drive

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXE9pl_Wf1M

EDIT: I was able to list the floppies with the |DIR command. Later, the CAT command also started to work. Why such a dependency ?


Title: Re: Disk station and incorrect drive belt replacement.
Post by: sokot on 08:57, 20 May 25
What puzzles me is why everything started working after using the "|DIR" command. I was able to use the "CAT" command later and load the games.
Title: Re: Disk station and incorrect drive belt replacement.
Post by: eto on 09:16, 20 May 25
Quote from: sokot on Today at 08:57why everything started working after using the "|DIR" command
Probably pure coincidence. It would also have worked after doing another CAT. I have also seen that a drive needs several retries until it works again. 

Btw: A belt change seems trivial but it requires to be very careful when cleaning. There must not be the tiniest bit of leftover from the old belt. Sometimes the residue is hidden pretty well and hard to spot. If there is even a tiny bit left on one of the wheels the speed of the drive can be off and it won't read discs. 
Title: Re: Disk station and incorrect drive belt replacement.
Post by: sokot on 09:27, 20 May 25
I certainly cleaned the rubber well. It was very tight to the small motor wheel. Unfortunately, a strange tarnish was left on it (on this wheel on the side of it where the rubber was stretched and glued.) as if discolouring the very structure of the metal.
Title: Re: Disk station and incorrect drive belt replacement.
Post by: Bryce on 09:58, 20 May 25
Hi Sokot,
     you may have accidentally got so silicon on the belt or wheels, causing the belt to slip. It may recover by itself if you use it for a while. If not, you can check what speed the disks are turning (should be around 300RPM) and adjust this if necessary.

Bryce.
Title: Re: Disk station and incorrect drive belt replacement.
Post by: sokot on 11:01, 20 May 25
Could you tell me if there is a program to measure the drive speed? Are they adjusted mechanically in the drive somehow? I have experience more with commodore 64 stations and there you can measure with a program and adjust with a screwdriver in the disk drive itself. There is a plastic regulator
Title: Re: Disk station and incorrect drive belt replacement.
Post by: Bryce on 11:18, 20 May 25
There's a program (somewhere here in the forum) in disk and ROM version. The speed can be adjusted with the small screw (under a rubber seal) on the top of the motor.

Bryce.
Title: Re: Disk station and incorrect drive belt replacement.
Post by: sokot on 11:53, 20 May 25
thank you :)
Title: Re: Disk station and incorrect drive belt replacement.
Post by: eto on 12:20, 20 May 25
There are some tools on the AUA utility disk: 

https://auamstrad.es/software/aua-utilidades/
Title: Re: Disk station and incorrect drive belt replacement.
Post by: Bryce on 12:27, 20 May 25
You can find the RPM DSK version here: https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/hardware-related/is-there-a-rom-that-can-be-used-to-test-disk-drives/ (https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/hardware-related/is-there-a-rom-that-can-be-used-to-test-disk-drives/)

The DSK version of DSKTest here: https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/applications/dsktest-v0-1b/ (https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/applications/dsktest-v0-1b/)

The ROM Version of DSKTest: https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/applications/dsktest-v0-1b/msg98206/#msg98206 (https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/applications/dsktest-v0-1b/msg98206/#msg98206)

Bryce.
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