New Zealand Vintage Computer Forums

Since resurrecting my old System 80 I have had a few problems. Terry fixed the main issues of my wavy screen (described elsewhere on this forum) but I have had problems with one of my Dick Smith disk drives. Refusing to read a directory, not formatting, and then occasionally working... I of course suspected the worst (as is my usual cheerful way). Following a visit from Terry and Phil a couple of weeks ago assorted suggestions were made as to what the problem might be. I of course, having no desire to touch anything that smacks of bits of electronic wizardry chose to look at the item that required the least of these skills and adjusted the speed of the drive (as suggested by the visiting experts). To be honest I doubted it would solve the problem as the drive was only running slightly slow - Oh ye of little faith! Guess what - after adjusting the speed from 295/296rpm to just over 300rpm all of a sudden my drive started behaving normally again - formatting disks, reading directories, copying files! Oh what bliss it is to have all three drives functioning again - so thanks heaps terry and Phil! Maybe now I can tackle the non-functioning tape drive!

Good to hear it's working Kenneth. Hopefully that is what it was.

These old machines like the expanded System 80 have so many parts that can go wrong. Faulty connecting cabels, oxidised card edges, PSU problems in either drives OR expander boxes, the mechanics of the drives not to mention the all the aging electronic components! If problems with the drives re-occur you'll find it's useful to have three of them available, in that through comparison and swapping you can often isolate the problem.