DaveDDS wrote on 2025-11-10, 19:59:

Good way to test seeking --- use ImageDisk […]
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Good way to test seeking --- use ImageDisk

In the Align/Test function, you can seek to any track.

In the clean-heads function, it "scrubs" the heads by seeking back and forth.

Both easily visible.

Ah, thank you. I don't have a drive set up with a modern PC in order to run any diagnostics that way. Maybe there is something similar that I could put on my XT IDE disk...

amstradus wrote on 2025-11-10, 20:26:

Ah, thank you. I don't have a drive set up with a modern PC in order to run any diagnostics that way. Maybe there is something similar that I could put on my XT IDE disk...

ImageDIsk doesn't run on "modern" PCs - it has to run under DOS, because it access the floppy hardware directly, and can't tolerate the various protections
and real-time uncertainty of "modern" systems.

It will run on at XT ... by default it assumes you have an AT type floppy controller - but there's a switch to make it fall back to an XT compatible one.
That will reduce some capability ... but it should still work well for seek tests.

amstradus wrote on 2025-11-10, 20:25:

If I try to run the install file I hear five short rather loud 'scrubbing' sounds, and then I get the error message.

https://youtube.com/shorts/UVSfhkCMgY0?feature=share

That sound seems to confirm that something's up when the drive tries to seek. On the other hand, if the drive were just seeking the wrong way, it wouldn't notice it when formatting a disk. How far does the formatting process progress before it aborts with an error?

mkarcher wrote on 2025-11-10, 20:36:

That sound seems to confirm that something's up when the drive tries to seek. On the other hand, if the drive were just seeking the wrong way, it wouldn't notice it when formatting a disk. ...

I wouldn't count on that - It does use a Track-0 sensor to tell when the head is home'd, and that doesn't exist at the inner track depth.
not knowing where the head is would also likely result in it banging against the limit stops frequently, even if for some reason it didn't fail
on Track-0 seek.

mkarcher wrote on 2025-11-10, 20:36:

amstradus wrote on 2025-11-10, 20:25:

If I try to run the install file I hear five short rather loud 'scrubbing' sounds, and then I get the error message.

https://youtube.com/shorts/UVSfhkCMgY0?feature=share

That sound seems to confirm that something's up when the drive tries to seek. On the other hand, if the drive were just seeking the wrong way, it wouldn't notice it when formatting a disk. How far does the formatting process progress before it aborts with an error?

It just says Saving UNFORMAT information, scrubs 5 times then "Sector not found reading drive B" message:

https://youtube.com/shorts/GyJY6VjSgfg?feature=share

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-11-10, 20:33:

ImageDIsk doesn't run on "modern" PCs - it has to run under DOS, because it access the floppy hardware directly, and can't toler […]
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amstradus wrote on 2025-11-10, 20:26:

Ah, thank you. I don't have a drive set up with a modern PC in order to run any diagnostics that way. Maybe there is something similar that I could put on my XT IDE disk...

ImageDIsk doesn't run on "modern" PCs - it has to run under DOS, because it access the floppy hardware directly, and can't tolerate the various protections
and real-time uncertainty of "modern" systems.

It will run on at XT ... by default it assumes you have an AT type floppy controller - but there's a switch to make it fall back to an XT compatible one.
That will reduce some capability ... but it should still work well for seek tests.

Ah, woops. I found this listed on your site (first listed). Is this the correct program?

http://dunfield.classiccmp.org/img/

amstradus wrote on 2025-11-10, 21:15:

It just says Saving UNFORMAT information, scrubs 5 times then "Sector not found reading drive B" message:

https://youtube.com/shorts/GyJY6VjSgfg?feature=share

Try "format /U" to avoid saving UNFORMAT information. This will not fix your issue, but possibly help identify the cause of the issue.

Are you sure that the drive works in a different system? You can get issues like this if the drive is mechanically jammed and unable to move the head properly. Although on the other hand, a jammed head movement is unlikely to be jammed exactly at track zero.

mkarcher wrote on 2025-11-10, 21:42:

amstradus wrote on 2025-11-10, 21:15:

It just says Saving UNFORMAT information, scrubs 5 times then "Sector not found reading drive B" message:

https://youtube.com/shorts/GyJY6VjSgfg?feature=share

Try "format /U" to avoid saving UNFORMAT information. This will not fix your issue, but possibly help identify the cause of the issue.

Are you sure that the drive works in a different system? You can get issues like this if the drive is mechanically jammed and unable to move the head properly. Although on the other hand, a jammed head movement is unlikely to be jammed exactly at track zero.

with Format/U the disk was able to be formatted but unable to write BOOT:

amstradus wrote on 2025-11-10, 21:17:

I found this listed on your site (first listed). Is this the correct program?
http://dunfield.classiccmp.org/img/

Yes.

Do you have a way to get it onto your DOS system?
Network , serial port or another working floppy drive?

mkarcher wrote on 2025-11-10, 21:42:

amstradus wrote on 2025-11-10, 21:15:

It just says Saving UNFORMAT information, scrubs 5 times then "Sector not found reading drive B" message:

https://youtube.com/shorts/GyJY6VjSgfg?feature=share

Try "format /U" to avoid saving UNFORMAT information. This will not fix your issue, but possibly help identify the cause of the issue.

Are you sure that the drive works in a different system? You can get issues like this if the drive is mechanically jammed and unable to move the head properly. Although on the other hand, a jammed head movement is unlikely to be jammed exactly at track zero.

And no, I'm not sure the drive works. I bought it untested.

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-11-10, 22:03:

Yes. […]
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amstradus wrote on 2025-11-10, 21:17:

I found this listed on your site (first listed). Is this the correct program?
http://dunfield.classiccmp.org/img/

Yes.

Do you have a way to get it onto your DOS system?
Network , serial port or another working floppy drive?

I have a flash drive on my XT IDE that I can transfer it to. Would I need to then transfer it to a floppy or can I run it from the XT IDE? I will try. The 5.25 A drive works but the only blank I have is a single sided DD which won't fit the folder.

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-11-10, 22:03:

Yes. […]
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amstradus wrote on 2025-11-10, 21:17:

I found this listed on your site (first listed). Is this the correct program?
http://dunfield.classiccmp.org/img/

Yes.

Do you have a way to get it onto your DOS system?
Network , serial port or another working floppy drive?

Which file to run for the proper disk utility?

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-11-10, 22:03:

Yes. […]
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amstradus wrote on 2025-11-10, 21:17:

I found this listed on your site (first listed). Is this the correct program?
http://dunfield.classiccmp.org/img/

Yes.

Do you have a way to get it onto your DOS system?
Network , serial port or another working floppy drive?

I managed to get into the utility I think. Running it now but the floppy has been running for 2 minutes now...

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-11-10, 22:03:

Yes. […]
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amstradus wrote on 2025-11-10, 21:17:

I found this listed on your site (first listed). Is this the correct program?
http://dunfield.classiccmp.org/img/

Yes.

Do you have a way to get it onto your DOS system?
Network , serial port or another working floppy drive?

Welp! I've done my diligence for today. Cool utility. I reformatted the floppy with your utility and then finally figured out how to run TEST FDC on the floppy drive. Here are the results:

I suppose I could try the alignment/test utility again -- it's no longer giving my question marks, just a long scroll of numbers, and it runs 3 minutes+ and keeps going. Not sure how long that is supposed to take, maybe you could give me an idea, if you think it's worth doing.

Yes, you can run it from IDE...

Try "clean heads" - the goal was to find out it the drive seeks properly - CleanHeads will "scrub"the head back and forth, and you can easily see how it moves.
(If you have a 3.5" floppy - the top cover will probably come off so you can see the heads move)

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-11-11, 02:23:

Yes, you can run it from IDE...

Try "clean heads" - the goal was to find out it the drive seeks properly - CleanHeads will "scrub"the head back and forth, and you can easily see how it moves.
(If you have a 3.5" floppy - the top cover will probably come off so you can see the heads move)

I tried the cleaning function. The heads are moving but making a good amount of noise. I don't think there is enough lubrication on the 'guide' shaft, and maybe it is skipping over the metal. Just a guess:

https://youtube.com/shorts/RaRriZgU4-I?feature=share

Look about right and doesn't appear to be "sticking".

Some 5.25" drives are loud stepping, and ImageDisk in it's goal to support as many old drives as possible, doesn't have a super-fast step rate.

If you power-off, and move the drive heads to the inner end (prob have to manually move the stepper shaft. when you power-on, is it as loud?
This would get BIOS to step the length of the disk at it's "normal" rate.

Have you actually cleaned the heads? Your problem may be related to dirty heads (although I would expect track-0 to be equally affected in that case)

Your problem could also be alignment (but again, should affect all tracks).. Do you have other systems with similar drives?

Have you tried this drive an any other system? Have you tried other (known working) drives in this system?
(Sorry, these Q's may have been asked/answered here before ... just not keeping everything in memory as well as i used to these days)

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-11-11, 10:31:

Look about right and doesn't appear to be "sticking". […]
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Look about right and doesn't appear to be "sticking".

Some 5.25" drives are loud stepping, and ImageDisk in it's goal to support as many old drives as possible, doesn't have a super-fast step rate.

If you power-off, and move the drive heads to the inner end (prob have to manually move the stepper shaft. when you power-on, is it as loud?
This would get BIOS to step the length of the disk at it's "normal" rate.

Have you actually cleaned the heads? Your problem may be related to dirty heads (although I would expect track-0 to be equally affected in that case)

Your problem could also be alignment (but again, should affect all tracks).. Do you have other systems with similar drives?

Have you tried this drive an any other system? Have you tried other (known working) drives in this system?
(Sorry, these Q's may have been asked/answered here before ... just not keeping everything in memory as well as i used to these days)

I moved the heads towards the inner end and powered up again and it seemed quieter than during cleaning, but now it's not reading at all for some reason.

I'm going to go ahead and pick up another drive tomorrow, a Panasonic JU-256A216P, and give that a go. This is the only system I have with drives.

Would you say that most 3.5" drives that work at 720k can be made to work in these older machines? Initially I had thought there were only certain models that would work, and a search gives mixed answers. Maybe you can give me a brief on what I might look for, in case this one doesn't work tomorrow. Thanks again

amstradus wrote on 2025-11-11, 19:21:

Would you say that most 3.5" drives that work at 720k can be made to work in these older machines? Initially I had thought there were only certain models that would work, and a search gives mixed answers. Maybe you can give me a brief on what I might look for, in case this one doesn't work tomorrow. Thanks again

Any 720KB drive should work, and any PC-compatible 1.44MB drive should work if pin 2 is shorted to ground. If pin 2 is open, it may or may not work. Drive B in that Amstrad machine is accessed like drive B in any other PC compatible computer. For drive A, you need to modify the drive to respond to DS0 instead of DS1, which requires soldering on many newer drives, if it is supported at all.

Good luck with the other drive you are getting!

amstradus wrote on 2025-11-11, 19:21:

I moved the heads towards the inner end and powered up again and it seemed quieter than during cleaning, but now it's not reading at all for some reason.

Quieter is not really surprising ... like I said earlier, ImageDisk uses slower step rate - Stepping faster is often quieter.

Did it work more before you moved the heads?
Perhaps the heads really are not moving correctly - try moving it back to home and see if it works as well as before.

Sometimes it can help to lube the stepper motor and shaft. I use a light silicon grease with good results for things like that.

Would you say that most 3.5" drives that work at 720k can be made to work in these older machines? Initially I had thought there were only certain models that would work, and a search gives mixed answers. Maybe you can give me a brief on what I might look for, in case this one doesn't work tomorrow. Thanks again

All 3.5" drives can do DD (720k) - this is at 250kbps data rate. HD drives (1.44m) can also do 500kbps data rate.
The "trick" is that there is a signal to the drive to adjust it's electronics to suit the data rate and a DD only system may not
have that connected - you can make a connection to force an HD drive to always be DD (I don't recall the pin but I think somone else suggested Pin2)