'Check disk or drive door!' msg suddenly

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Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Joined: Nov 24 2013 - 13:23
Posts: 226
'Check disk or drive door!' msg suddenly

I was using this Linden clone I got the other day to make some disks. The unit appears to work great -- however, when attempting to format disks under ADTPro, after the first few it started saying 'check disk or drive door'. Now it does that for every disk I attempt to format, even though I switched back to another Apple II and different controller card. Anything I'm missing here?

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Last seen: 2 years 3 months ago
Joined: Nov 24 2013 - 13:23
Posts: 226
Re: 'Check disk or drive door!' msg suddenly

I did five more formats on the same disk, and finally the drive got it. Prior to getting a good one, each time it finished there was a bit of a clunking noise I hadn't heard before happening at the end.. and as its writing disks now it's having trouble too. I doubt it's the disks.. I've tried a whole bunch.. starting to wonder if the drive is flaking.

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Last seen: 10 years 2 months ago
Joined: Apr 6 2009 - 16:46
Posts: 22
Re: 'Check disk or drive door!' msg suddenly

I've had that happen before. I was using new old stock disks that seemed perfectly fine when in reality they were deteriorated. The disks gummed up the drive, however it was a easy fix. Just open up the drive and get to the Read/Write heads and clean them with a Q-tip and dipped in rubbing alcohol.

Also sometimes on odd occasions I've had W/R failures because the heads had inducted a magnetic field from a disk. I use a degausser designed for tape/audio equipment to demagnatize the read/write heads. This tool can be found on ebay for pretty cheap.

I wish you luck!

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