I was having a bit of a play with my various systems today, but had a couple of disappointments, but as I know next to nothing about hardware, I need a little bit of help.
One of my FD-1s looks as though it needs a new drive belt. I've replaced the one in my 6128 which was straight forward enough. Is it much the same procedure in an external drive?
More worryingly, the disk drive in the 6128 isn't doing anything. The red led is on, but when I try to use it I get nothing from it, no whirring. Nothing. I'm guessing the motor may have gone. Is likely to be something easily fixable, or would it be best/easier to cannibalise an external drive?
Finally, I was hoping to format a few floppies to back up some other disks, but my CP/M disk is caput. My one working extra drive can't read the disk at all and, although my 6128+ does its best, there are so many errors it just freezes when I try to run disc kit. So this leaves me with 2 questions - where would I most likely be able to find a copy of the system disks (1 & 2. I have 3 & 4 working just fine)? And, guessing the FD-1 just needs a good clean up - are there any areas I should be paying more attention to/should be avoiding?
Sorry for the noob questions. I've only recently returned to the computers of my youth and I'm trying to keep the hardware as original as possible
A few years ago I replaced the belt in my 6128 & FD-1. I don't recall there being much difference if any at all. If you can do one you should be able to do the other easily :)
FD-1: Yes the belt swap procedure is identical to the internal 6128 belt swap you've already done.
6128: Check that the drive is getting 12V. It sounds like it's only getting 5V.
Plus: Try and load the RPM test program and check that it's spinning between 290 and 310rpm.
Bryce.
Regarding the 6128+, I would try to buy a C4CPC and use ParaDOS. Then you will not need disckit anymore :) Some people sell cartridges with ParaDOS on e-bay but, considering the price and the advantages of the C4CPC I would definitely go for it.
About the FD-1 I recently was doing the maintenance of an old unit that was not working. You can have a look here because there are pictures that could be useful:
Servicing my FD-1 (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/servicing-my-fd-1/)
The FD-1 is pretty robust, probably it just need a cleaning (if at all) and the new belt :)
Hi @Narf If you want a 6128 cart with parados then send me your current cart and I'll upgrade it with parados 1.2+ so you still get access to burning rubber.