[sebhc] Diskette Drives

[Barry Watzman]

Track 0 adjustment and radial alignment are two different things.

Radial alignment insures that when the drive thinks that the head is over a
track (ANY track), it is indeed over a track, and not between tracks, or not
"directly" over a track (perhaps enough to function, but if you write to a
diskette that way, you can cause real problems).

Track 0 alignment insures that the drive is over the track that it thinks it
is over; that when the drive thinks it's over track 27, it really is over
track 27, and not track 24, 25, 26 or 28, 29 or 30.

Your post suggests an incomplete understanding of these two distinct
adjustments, what they do and how they interact.


-----Original Message-----
From: sebhc-bounces at sebhc.org [mailto:sebhc-bounces at sebhc.org] On Behalf Of
bill malcolm
Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 1:53 PM
To: sebhc at sebhc.org
Subject: Re: [sebhc] Diskette Drives

Yes it could be alignment ---
First  you must be sure that the drive is any good.   Connect it as drive
#2  and try and format media in it. If this fails drive could be bad -- I
have had several of these drive go bad TEAC's are much better.

If  you were able to format media in it as drive 2   - then it needs track 0
adjustment.
1. Easy without alignment disk.  connect drive as drive 0.  *** have the
drive external to machine to adjust.
2. find track zero adj  ( loose the screw slightly) install boot floppy --
try reboot and then
    adjust and reboot  --  repeat as need  --   you could attack a scope to
the data and determine if data is there also as an aid.

bill ..
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carroll Waddell" <carrollwaddell at sc.rr.com>
To: <sebhc at sebhc.org>
Sent: Saturday, June 17, 2006 5:45 PM
Subject: Re: [sebhc] Diskette Drives


> Carroll Waddell wrote:
>
> > Does anyone know about diskette head alignment?
> > I got some Tandon TM100 drives off EBAY. They are single sided and
> > look like they should work, but diskettes written on the normal H17
> > won't read on the Tandon. Is there some different head alignment or
> > something?
> > Carroll
> > --
> > Delivered by the SEBHC Mailing List
> >
> I've been playing with diskette drives all afternoon.  First, I'm
> working with hard sector diskettes. The diskettes are new that Patrick
> Rigney got for us last year.
> I have 2 of the Siemens drives that Heath sold for the H17. They work
> fine. I also have a Shugart (some model) that also works fine. I bought
> a TRS-80 that had 2 full height Tandon TM100-1A drives.
> In the past, I've used drives from an IBM PC. These will work fine IF
> YOU CREATE THE DISKETTES ON THE PC DRIVE. Diskettes created on the
> Siemens drives cannot be read by an IBM PC drive and vice versa.
> At any rate, I've tried diskettes created in the Siemens Drives and the
> IBM drives on the Tandon. Neither Tandon drive will read any diskette I
> have.
> I haven't torn it open yet, but I bought a Kaypro Portable with 2 drives
> in it, but I think these are the Tandon drives also, but not sure.
> Of course, BOTH of the Tandon drives could be bad.
>
> I have 1 Siemens drive that smokes when power is applied to it. The
> motor control card is smoking. I'm going to strip it down to the bare
> PCB and rebuild it, but that will take time.
>
> Basically, I'm just trying to see what kind of diskette drives we can
> use in the H17.
> Carroll
> --
> Delivered by the SEBHC Mailing List
>
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