This episode focuses on my second Commodore 1571, which provides much more challenging to diagnose and repair than the first unit (ep4).

Timestamps

00:00 Intro
00:26 Initial testing
04:03 Testing RW heads
08:06 Dead short has cleared
10:13 Testing with a C64
10:43 Fixing the spindle motor
15:53 Testing RW heads again
17:41 Testing the top (working) RW head
19:39 Hand wringing over the failed RW head
21:29 Wrap-up

Problems with this drive:

  • The last numpty to work on this drive connected all of the spindle motor, stepper motor and LED sensor connectors the wrong way around - leading to a short on the 12V line, and even once that was cleared, the drive just not working at all, mostly with DRIVE NOT READY. I eventually figured that out, and that didn’t seem to have led to any permanent problems.
  • Once that problem was fixed, it turned out the lower (under side, side 1) read/write head had failed somewhere within the sealed head unit itself - I don’t have a spare head unit, so this drive will become a spares drive.

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