Re: [cbm4linux-users] a few questions

[Andreas <co...@c6...>]

Regarding Martin's and Ryan's Mails:

> > > 3) Is there, or would it be possible to construct, a program to do head
> > > alignment of a commodore drive using a x*1541 cable and a PC?
> >
> > Absolutely possible. Anything you can do from a C64 should be also
> > doable from a Linux PC (except highly timing-sensitive drive/host
> > communication stuff).
> > For inspiration, here's a small GTK+-based tool to measure the drives
> > rotation speed:
> >
> > http://a98.shuttle.de/~michael/rpm1541/
> > (Use scratch disk!)

> Nice to read such a thing.
> I have a 1541 i knew was working fine until i carried it to a friend.
> Now it can't read any more disks, it just returns errors. Unfortunately
> i have no program to re-align the head, is there something available on
> the net? I found no one so far who has any original disks with such
> programs and i was told it was a vendor-only thing.
>
> Can anyone help me?

This is basically all you need, no ?
Simply run Michael's program and align your drivespeed to 300 rounds per 
minute. "Kwik Copy" on C64 allows you to display the drivespeed aswell, but 
will display 312 r/min on a PAL system. :)
Other measures are the usual head cleaning with alcohol and using "proper" 
disks as far as possible.
The actual head alignment sometimes works (there are various programs redoing 
all kind of operations on "good" disks until it gives halfway good values), 
but I would try anything before going for that.
Whenever you need such a program more often, there is something else seriously 
wrong, I guess.


I, personally, still suffer from my XMP1541 cable not working fine.

Whenever trying parallel transfer a disk is read at quite ok parallel speed, 
but on 2-3 places at different places (on same disks, several re-tries) the 
transfer hangs, gives errors, and most likely continues. I have experienced 
hangings aswell though.
Using Suse 9.0 on AMD XP 2000 with a K7S5A Elitegroup Mainboard. Experienced 
similar problems eversince I switched to 2.4.x Kernel. Didn't help much to 
try 2.6.x Kernels either and I didn't manage to get 2.2.x going again.

Anyone else experienced this ? All serial transfers with and without warp are 
just fine.

(Yes, I asked and described this before ... :) )

l8r

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