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From: hh2x@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm
Subject: Re: 1571 problems
Message-ID: <1991Feb6.193749.2593@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>
Date: 6 Feb 91 23:37:49 GMT
References: <1991Feb6.124702.2586@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>
Distribution: comp
Lines: 40

In article <1991Feb6.124702.2586@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>,
s25y@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
> Hi all!
>
>  I'm having some trouble with my 1571 drive, and wondered if anybody had
> any helpful ideas. It has been having trouble writing to the back side of
> two sided disks lately. When I try to format a two sided disk from BASIC, I
> get a ?Bad Disk Error message. If you listen to the ticks the drive makes
> as it formats, they go along regularly for a while, make a long scraping
> noise (Has always done that- I take it to be the drive switching to the
> other side of the disk) and then the ticks slow and become erratic, the
> green drive light blinks, and eventually it stops with the aforementioned
> error.
>  Further, when I try and write a file to a double sided disk, it works fine
> if the disk is less than about half full, but if it contains more than
> that, the drive gets into this thing where it scrapes back and forth over
> and over and takes a very long time to write files. However, it reads all
> files perfectly, at normal speed, from the front or the back. Any ideas?
>
>                     Greatly appreciated,
>
>                             Marc Fraioli
>                             s25y@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
>
>

There's nothing wrong with taking forever to write to the back of a disk. If it
really bothers you, get the most recent 1571 ROMS installed by any authorized
COmmodore service center. I haven't bothered, but I think this may solve the
problem. As for formatting, either your disks are bad, or your drive is toast.
Perhaps I will post a 1571 alignment checker, though I don't know if that could
be the problem.

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