You may be right but the head isn't even
loading so I'm not even getting
that far. I have a Shugart 800/801 manual but it's vague about the
differences between the two. But IIRC the 801 is designed to handle hard
sectored disk and the 800 doesn't. I'm wondering if the index pulse
detection circuit is different and may be causing a not ready condition or
something similar. (Yes I know I can check it with a logic probe but I
I think you might well be on the right track. IIRC, the 'ready' signal
only goes active after the index signal has behaved correctly (indicating
there is a good disk, rotating correctly, in the drive). It's possible
that if the drive is set for hard sector operation and you've loaded a
soft-sector disk, then the drive will never go ready.
According to the scheamtics, there's a pair of jumpers labeled '800' and
'801' on older versions of the main PCB. Later versions (with a 40 pin
ASIC) have a single 3 pin jumper with the 2 positions labelled '800' and
'801'. This is confusing, you _don't_ set the jumper to '801' if you
have
an '801' drive.
Rather, '800' means soft-sectored (and disables the hard-sector
circuitry, which is only present in 801 model drives), '801' means
hard-sectored. I'd check the position of this jumper.
-tony