Been messing with my Epson ActionNote 4SLC/33. The floppy had flaked out on and off, not sure why, anyway, when it's working it doesn't seem to read disks as well as a 486 board does on a desktop floppy drive. They're old disks, but desktop one has less errors and can get past most of them with a retry or two. Anyway, so I was trying various things, reading in non-turbo, reading with cache off, screaming out the window because it went "AWOL" again for a couple of boots... So I came to try two other drives, a slightly different version TEAC than the one that was in there, and 15 years younger, and a "this century" Panasonic JU-226 ... now while they were smoother and didn't seem to drop out yet, read performance might only have been a tad better but didn't approach desktop error tolerance.

Disks that I had formatted and written in the last 5 years were no problem. Guess I need to get an LS-120 machine back up for superb error recovery and rewrite all the old fading ones.

Anyway, I think it is going to go back together with the newer TEAC, but it requires a bit of vandalism, plastic removed to clear the eject button. Also oddly it's a couple mm narrower, so needs some padding to sit in the cradle right.

Next up, contemplating whether I will "ruin" the memory board that's in there by trying to solder a bunch more DRAM to it. Wondering whether I want an FPU in it to warm it up with another couple of watts and make it fast enough to be too slow to play anything that's 486DX required.

I gave my original 1983 Breadbin (250407 model) a new case. I went for the breadbin gray case, and used a gold coloured custom case badge.
Found the case brand new from Individual computers in Germany.
They still sell them untill stock runs out, now the original injection molds are at Commodore in USA.

BitWrangler wrote on Yesterday, 03:01:

.... The floppy had flaked out on and off, not sure why ...

Happens with age of the material holding the magnetic media to the flexible back.
This will only get worse, and it is also now very susceptible to mechanical stress, even reading it can cause further damage, let along seeking back and forth during retries.

When recovering old media, I use ImageDisk which will let me control much more of what it does, can "keep" bad sectors, and most importantly can combing the .IMD produced by multiple read attempts into a single image with all the "good" sectors you were able to read in any of the attempts.

Also, when recovering really old/damaged media during the various read attempts, I still sometimes experiment with slight misalignment slight (sometimes tracks can be a bit better at one of the edges), slight changes to head pressure (usually lightening it, but there have been cases where I had to go slightly harder - never a good idea as it will accelerate wear of already "flakey" media)

The surfaces appear in good shape visually on most of the disks in question. I was also reading them better on the XT clamshell which has a full height (Officially 1/3 of full bay height for 5.25, whereas a full height 3.5 HDD is 2/3 height or 2 normal 3.5 bays.) floppy. I am fairly sure most of these disks are good, but the actual intensity of the recorded data has faded. Anyway, I am more struck by the difference between the low profile drives and the desktop size drives, revealed by these "just so" amount of faded disks. Thinking it's something about head construction, they're not as thick for sure, maybe have to use finer wire, maybe there's nano-amps lost in resistance that impede pickup strength.

edit: I should mention that some of the disks that read perfectly are actually from the same batch of disks of some that don't. They were either a couple of blank leftovers from the box of 50 I bought in 199x or I re-used disks that had nothing important on. The difference is only that I wrote stuff to them in the last few years, vs back in the 1990s... of course I could have had a crap drive back in the 1990s but the difference is also happening on PD catalog disks and software originals that I did not write.

BitWrangler wrote on Yesterday, 16:24:

The surfaces appear in good shape visually on most of the disks in question.

That's good - Often with age deteriorating disks you can see "lines" showing where the actual tracks (where the head touches) are.

I was also reading them better on the XT clamshell which has a full height (Officially 1/3 of full bay height for 5.25, whereas a full height 3.5 HDD is 2/3 height or 2 normal 3.5 bays.) floppy. I am fairly sure most of these disks are good, but the actual intensity of the recorded data has faded. Anyway, I am more struck by the difference between the low profile drives and the desktop size drives, revealed by these "just so" amount of faded disks. Thinking it's something about head construction, they're not as thick for sure, maybe have to use finer wire, maybe there's nano-amps lost in resistance that impede pickup strength.

Yeah, I've never had a good luck with the super-thin (laptop) drives as i do with normal size desktop drives ... but YMMV with any drive!
Which being up another suggestion .. try reading on different drives - one drive may be able to read a marginal disk while another can't.
Just make sure all drives you use have spotlessly clean heads - bits of "crap" sticking to drive heads are probably the main cause of physical damage.
(and "of course" I recommend ImageDisk "clean heads" function, as it will "scrub" the heads back and forth over a cleaning disk, which IME works *MUCH* better than just DIR or any other means of accessing the drive to make it spin)

Btw, it's unlikely the magnetic domains will just "fade" enough to be a problem, most common degradation of existing recordings are storage with stray magnetic fields, use in drives which have (or are in) an unwanted magnetic field, and of course re-writing sectors (change to files, attributes etc.) while accessing from a "bad" drive.

edit: I should mention that some of the disks that read perfectly are actually from the same batch of disks of some that don't. They were either a couple of blank leftovers from the box of 50 I bought in 199x or I re-used disks that had nothing important on. The difference is only that I wrote stuff to them in the last few years, vs back in the 1990s... of course I could have had a crap drive back in the 1990s but the difference is also happening on PD catalog disks and software originals that I did not write.

Not uncommon at all, lots of things affect individual disks - amount of use, drives used and their head & write circuitry condition.

DaveDDS wrote on Yesterday, 15:45:

Happens with age of the material holding the magnetic media to the flexible back. This will only get worse, and it is also now v […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on Yesterday, 03:01:

.... The floppy had flaked out on and off, not sure why ...

Happens with age of the material holding the magnetic media to the flexible back.
This will only get worse, and it is also now very susceptible to mechanical stress, even reading it can cause further damage, let along seeking back and forth during retries.

When recovering old media, I use ImageDisk which will let me control much more of what it does, can "keep" bad sectors, and most importantly can combing the .IMD produced by multiple read attempts into a single image with all the "good" sectors you were able to read in any of the attempts.

Also, when recovering really old/damaged media during the various read attempts, I still sometimes experiment with slight misalignment slight (sometimes tracks can be a bit better at one of the edges), slight changes to head pressure (usually lightening it, but there have been cases where I had to go slightly harder - never a good idea as it will accelerate wear of already "flakey" media)

Do you have any thoughts on a new retail LS120 drive that waited until its warranty expired, then started destroying disks? It's been in a cardboard box ever since so cannot show decades of mechanical wear.

IIRC, it would read/write then jam. I'd extract the disk manually, and the disk would be unreadable/unrecoverable.

Gave my extra copy of Yars' Revenge a new home. The old home was in rough shape. 😀

This is a "prototype" for an idea I've got. Needs some work, but so far, so good.

I got the FD-05HG fitting through the hole nice, the FD-05HF that was in the ActionNote had a sidewinder button, but this one was top right. Strangely, all the HF docs show a drive identical to the HG rather than the HF I have.

I discovered unfortunately that this machine is painted/coated grey over white plastic, which is somewhat a) amazing that it didn't have a white scratch or wear patch on it in 33 years, and b) disappointing that I did not know this before I put a tool rub mark around the floppy orifice... anyone know where to get a grey sharpie 🤣

Tried the freebie US83S87 FPU in it, that I had hanging around.... it does not show the POST screen 🙁 ... unsure if bad FPU or machine doesn't like THIS fpu.

Anyhoo, button up day tomorrow.

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 20:29:

Do you have any thoughts on a new retail LS120 drive that waited until its warranty expired, then started destroying disks? It's been in a cardboard box ever since so cannot show decades of mechanical wear.

IIRC, it would read/write then jam. I'd extract the disk manually, and the disk would be unreadable/unrecoverable.

When it makes a disk "unrecoverable" are there any physical signs? Usually when drives start damaging media it's because of "crap" sticking to the head which scrapes away at the disks magnetic coating producing visible lines where the head touches it while spinning,

It's been years since I had an LS120 ... I recall that it does higher capacity on "special" disks, but I don't recall if it can access/use "standard" 3.5" disks. If it can ... does the same kind of damage occur in those?

If no visible damage, try using a bulk eraser to completely "unformat" the disk, then see if it can be formatted/used in another drive.

And... the question ... how/why does it "jam", sounds like more than the media is getting damaged...?

DaveDDS wrote on Today, 11:12:

When it makes a disk "unrecoverable" are there any physical signs? Usually when drives start damaging media it's because of "cra […]
Show full quote

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 20:29:

Do you have any thoughts on a new retail LS120 drive that waited until its warranty expired, then started destroying disks? It's been in a cardboard box ever since so cannot show decades of mechanical wear.

IIRC, it would read/write then jam. I'd extract the disk manually, and the disk would be unreadable/unrecoverable.

When it makes a disk "unrecoverable" are there any physical signs? Usually when drives start damaging media it's because of "crap" sticking to the head which scrapes away at the disks magnetic coating producing visible lines where the head touches it while spinning,

It's been years since I had an LS120 ... I recall that it does higher capacity on "special" disks, but I don't recall if it can access/use "standard" 3.5" disks. If it can ... does the same kind of damage occur in those?

If no visible damage, try using a bulk eraser to completely "unformat" the disk, then see if it can be formatted/used in another drive.

And... the question ... how/why does it "jam", sounds like more than the media is getting damaged...?

I can confirm that it can read 3.5" floppies.
It was considered good at it.

DaveDDS wrote on Today, 11:12:

When it makes a disk "unrecoverable" are there any physical signs? Usually when drives start damaging media it's because of "cra […]
Show full quote

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 20:29:

Do you have any thoughts on a new retail LS120 drive that waited until its warranty expired, then started destroying disks? It's been in a cardboard box ever since so cannot show decades of mechanical wear.

IIRC, it would read/write then jam. I'd extract the disk manually, and the disk would be unreadable/unrecoverable.

When it makes a disk "unrecoverable" are there any physical signs? Usually when drives start damaging media it's because of "crap" sticking to the head which scrapes away at the disks magnetic coating producing visible lines where the head touches it while spinning,

It's been years since I had an LS120 ... I recall that it does higher capacity on "special" disks, but I don't recall if it can access/use "standard" 3.5" disks. If it can ... does the same kind of damage occur in those?

If no visible damage, try using a bulk eraser to completely "unformat" the disk, then see if it can be formatted/used in another drive.

And... the question ... how/why does it "jam", sounds like more than the media is getting damaged...?

LS120 reads standard 1.44Mb 3.5" disks and 120Mb 3.5" super-disks. IIRC, 120Mb disks cannot be formatted from Windows - only erased. And, IIRC, LS120 could read standard floppy faster than a FDD.

If disassembled, I might be able to identify muck but I wouldn't have knowledge to spot something worn/misaligned. I think it's laser guided and too precise to guess by eye. If it's not a known fault then I guess it's another for the impossible projects box.

Nexxen wrote on Today, 11:33:

DaveDDS wrote on Today, 11:12:

When it makes a disk "unrecoverable" are there any physical signs? Usually when drives start damaging media it's because of "cra […]
Show full quote

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 20:29:

Do you have any thoughts on a new retail LS120 drive that waited until its warranty expired, then started destroying disks? It's been in a cardboard box ever since so cannot show decades of mechanical wear.

IIRC, it would read/write then jam. I'd extract the disk manually, and the disk would be unreadable/unrecoverable.

When it makes a disk "unrecoverable" are there any physical signs? Usually when drives start damaging media it's because of "crap" sticking to the head which scrapes away at the disks magnetic coating producing visible lines where the head touches it while spinning,

It's been years since I had an LS120 ... I recall that it does higher capacity on "special" disks, but I don't recall if it can access/use "standard" 3.5" disks. If it can ... does the same kind of damage occur in those?

If no visible damage, try using a bulk eraser to completely "unformat" the disk, then see if it can be formatted/used in another drive.

And... the question ... how/why does it "jam", sounds like more than the media is getting damaged...?

I can confirm that it can read 3.5" floppies.
It was considered good at it.

When it worked, it was very good in a MMX/P2 build when USB was unreliable and CDR was slow. But, they were never critical. No publisher distributed software on LS120.

LS120 does work with ordinary 1.44MB floppies and it can even special-format the ordinary floppy into 36MB floppy. Of course, normal FDD will not be able to work with the 36MB-formatted disks.

GigAHerZ wrote on Today, 14:11:

LS120 does work with ordinary 1.44MB floppies and it can even special-format the ordinary floppy into 36MB floppy. Of course, normal FDD will not be able to work with the 36MB-formatted disks.

How do you get 36MB from a 1.44MB floppy disk?

RetroLizard wrote on Today, 14:13:

GigAHerZ wrote on Today, 14:11:

LS120 does work with ordinary 1.44MB floppies and it can even special-format the ordinary floppy into 36MB floppy. Of course, normal FDD will not be able to work with the 36MB-formatted disks.

How do you get 36MB from a 1.44MB floppy disk?

Probably some special formatter utility. While i do have a LS120 drive and a single LS120 floppy, I have not yet played around with it enough to actually try it myself.

I remembered the size wrong - it's 32MB.

https://vogonswiki.com/index.php/LS-120_disk

Based on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggWW67iPgXI (9:30)
I might be mixing it a bit up. The 32MB formatting capability might have been only LS240's trick...

I am imagining it is somewhat similar to the exploding CD in 50x drive phenomenon... a few flawed disks do not like being spun at higher rate, also heads on LS-120 reputedly delicate and can be ripped off if used with a floppy with physical surface defects.