Denial

So the time has come that my 1541 is just giving me more read errors than I can take. My issue is that I don't know how to fix this? I know you need a disk, but I only know how to dismantle floppy drives.

If you take a blank floppy, format it and then read a few sectors here and there, or save a large file to it, can you read it back ?

If yes, then the head is out of alignment.

If not, it's possible the R/W head is dying.

If I write to it now and then read it then it works fine, but if I read disk I made 6 months ago or factory disk then no. I only get the directory of the disk and nothing else loads.

do you have proper SD disks?

Why does Single density disk matter
I use 3M SD,DD disk.

oh DD of course. anything that isnt HD actually (which doesnt work well)

My Exelerator+ Disk drive has never been able to read/write a DD disk!
Only SD disks work with this drive.

afaik there is no difference in the material, so that would be really odd (and isnt it a 1541 compatible drive?)

Well the issue is not the disk, because I use a variety of disk and all of them are starting to have read errors. I'm 96% sure the issue is a misaligned head, my issue is I don't know how to put it back into alignment.

Here is a video that may help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KuWJVUDc5k

alignment issues can be ruled out quite easily - only (and ONLY) when formatting/saving/loading on the same drive works, but loading factory made disks ("original disks") does not, then it is an alignment issue. when you get random problems even with disks written on that drive, then alignment is most likely NOT the problem.

also, if you dont know exactly how to align a drive, and if you dont have the equipment to do it - dont even think about doing it. you'll only make it worse and eventually render the drive unusable

Well that is my issue, I can read and write disk formatted 2 months ago, but factory disk will not read. I'm also getting disk that I formatted 6+ months ago not reading properly. I can get the directory on all disk though.

"Equiment" what kind of equipment?

norm8332 wrote:Here is a video that may help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KuWJVUDc5k

That's what I feared, I need a realignment disk. It's annoying to see how expensive they are.

I always just use a commercial (bought) disk and it works fine.

I have an oscilloscope, any solutions with that maybe?