3 Jul
2007
3 Jul
'07
6 a.m.
Hi fellow classiccmpers...
I recently picked up an old Act Sirius 1 machine (I've been looking for one for
years), which has a Tandon TM 502 harddisk in it. Unfortunately, the HDD
doesn't seem to work :(
It spins up, by the sounds of it, but is not talking to the computer. There's
no head noises of any description.
Where would I start in trying to diagnose & fix this drive? I have an elderly
oscilloscope, but little else in the way of diagnostic tools (no logic
analyser, for example). Or am I better off considering it scrap & trying to
find a working replacement? Personally, I'd prefer to resurrect this one if I
can.
Cheers,
Ade.
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3 Jul
3 Jul
12:44 p.m.
On 3 Jul 2007 at 11:00, Ade wrote:
I recently picked up an old Act Sirius 1 machine
(I've been looking for one for
years), which has a Tandon TM 502 harddisk in it. Unfortunately, the HDD
doesn't seem to work :(
It spins up, by the sounds of it, but is not talking to the computer. There's
no head noises of any description.>
Fortunately, the old drives use pretty ordinary componentry, so
troubleshooting and repair of the electronics board is pretty easy,
but if the HDA itself has problems, you have a tough job ahead of
you.
In my experience, the TM502 was an unreliable drive. One of the
local parts dealers was using them as doorstops. When I asked about
them, he said that he'd sell me his entire stock for $5. No--not $5
apiece, but $5 for the entire lot--but I had to take the entire lot.
These were supposedly working pulls.
I came home with about 20 of the things and was so underwhelmed by
the reliability of the ones I managed to get working that I scrapped
the entire bunch. Life's too short and I felt that I was cheated out
of $5.
There are better 10MB MFM drives if you can find them. There's
nothing magic, IIRC, about the TM502. I still have old Rodimes and
CMIs and Seagates, but no Tandons.
Cheers,
Chuck
3:57 p.m.
Hi fellow classiccmpers...
I recently picked up an old Act Sirius 1 machine (I've been looking for one for
years), which has a Tandon TM 502 harddisk in it. Unfortunately, the HDD
doesn't seem to work :(
Unfortunately my Srius is the twin-floppy model, so all the notes I made
on how that works are not going to be a lot of use.
It spins up, by the sounds of it, but is not talking to the computer. There's
no head noises of any description.
Is it old enough to be a stepper motor positioned? Some of those do not
restroe to cylinder 0 at power-on, so the heads won't move unless told to
do so by the controller board. It's possible there's a problem with the
controller, therefore.
Where would I start in trying to diagnose & fix this drive? I have an elderly
oscilloscope, but little else in the way of diagnostic tools (no logic
analyser, for example). Or am I better off considering it scrap & trying to
find a working replacement? Personally, I'd prefer to resurrect this one if I
can.
I assume this is a normal ST506 interface. I'd start by looking at the
signals there -- is the machine trying to select thr drive, does it send
STEP pulses, and so on. At lest then you'll know which drvice (controller
or deive) has the problem
-tony
4:49 p.m.
On 3 Jul 2007 at 20:57, Tony Duell wrote:
Is it old enough to be a stepper motor positioned?
Some of those do not
restroe to cylinder 0 at power-on, so the heads won't move unless told to
do so by the controller board. It's possible there's a problem with the
controller, therefore.
Stepper model, basically the Tandon version of the ST412. Bitsavers
has a users manual for the TM500 series and a maintenance manual for
the TM602, which might be pretty close. IIRC, these things were used
on some of the Tandy boxes.
Vanilla-plain 306 cylinder, 4 head, 1st generation buffered seek MFM
drive.
Cheers,
Chuck
6307
days inactive
6307
days old
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