blindowl
Well-known member
TL;DR
My Apple II Plus goes straight to the basic prompt instead of spinning up the Disk II drive in wait of a floppy. The drive is just quiet and does nothing. I got it working for a short period of time, but then it died again. It has power though. Where should I start my troubleshooting?
Long version
I just picked up my first Apple II (Plus) the other day and now I'm going thru everything, step by step. The first problem I had to tackle were some keyboard issues. But after re-soldering and changing a few switches all keys worked.
My next problem was the Disk II drive. It didn't start at all when I tried it the first time. I took it apart, inspected all components, cleaned it a bit and re-attached all connectors. After which it came to life. I could load a few programs from floppy and all seemed good. Then the keyboard started to behave weird again, typing wrong characters and after some time no characters at all... I decided to put the computer away for the day.
The following day I managed to fix the keyboard problem by re-seating and cleaning the chip at position A3. After a few reboots everything was normal again. Time to try some more floppies. And now the Disk II was dead again...
So what happens when I turn on the computer is it goes straight to the basic prompt. It does not wait for the drive. The drive does not spin and the head doesn't re-calibrate. I've measured the voltages on the drive connector and they seem ok. I can see the drive LED flash slghtly when the computer is turned on and when turned off.
Where should I start troubleshooting? Can it be the controller card? I've tried it in both slot 3 and 6. If I try the "PR#6" command the cursor disappear and then nothing more happens.
I should also add that I downloaded a diagnostic disk and converted it to audio (using the c2t tool) and after loading for 10-15 seconds it goes to some "INSTA-DISK" screen, the disk drive spins up for a few seconds (while making some noise, not the normal head calibration noise), then gives a "DISK ERROR". So it shows the computer has some control over the drive.
My Apple II Plus goes straight to the basic prompt instead of spinning up the Disk II drive in wait of a floppy. The drive is just quiet and does nothing. I got it working for a short period of time, but then it died again. It has power though. Where should I start my troubleshooting?
Long version
I just picked up my first Apple II (Plus) the other day and now I'm going thru everything, step by step. The first problem I had to tackle were some keyboard issues. But after re-soldering and changing a few switches all keys worked.
My next problem was the Disk II drive. It didn't start at all when I tried it the first time. I took it apart, inspected all components, cleaned it a bit and re-attached all connectors. After which it came to life. I could load a few programs from floppy and all seemed good. Then the keyboard started to behave weird again, typing wrong characters and after some time no characters at all... I decided to put the computer away for the day.
The following day I managed to fix the keyboard problem by re-seating and cleaning the chip at position A3. After a few reboots everything was normal again. Time to try some more floppies. And now the Disk II was dead again...
So what happens when I turn on the computer is it goes straight to the basic prompt. It does not wait for the drive. The drive does not spin and the head doesn't re-calibrate. I've measured the voltages on the drive connector and they seem ok. I can see the drive LED flash slghtly when the computer is turned on and when turned off.
Where should I start troubleshooting? Can it be the controller card? I've tried it in both slot 3 and 6. If I try the "PR#6" command the cursor disappear and then nothing more happens.
I should also add that I downloaded a diagnostic disk and converted it to audio (using the c2t tool) and after loading for 10-15 seconds it goes to some "INSTA-DISK" screen, the disk drive spins up for a few seconds (while making some noise, not the normal head calibration noise), then gives a "DISK ERROR". So it shows the computer has some control over the drive.
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