Re: need help with a disk II

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

alanford73@my-deja.com writes ...
> 
> In article <3A0D5BE1.5DE2DF94@swbell.net>,
>   Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net> wrote:
> >
> >
 ....
> 
> I don't receive any error message, just the in-use ligth turn on and I
> can hear the diskII noise for a while just like when it's writing but
> when I check what is on the disk I get only the volume number and thet's
> all.I would look for another diskII but I live in Rome,Italy and these
> things are really hard to find here.
 ....

     It doesn't sound like you have a write protect problem.

     The most common cause of Disk ][ problems is a dirty head. You can get a
5.25" Head Cleaner kit from most computer stuff stores. It includes a paper
diskette and cleaning fluid. Here is a modified snip from the FAQs about head
cleaning:

>>
     The 5.25" Cleaner Diskette has panels you pop out to expose the cleaning
surface. Apple II 5.25" drives have a single head which contacts the disk
from the bottom and a pressure pad which presses against the top side. So,
pop out the panel on the bottom side of the Cleaner Diskette and leave the
top panel in place. When cleaning, insert the diskette with the bottom side
facing down. This lets the paper disk rub against the head and avoids wear on
the pressure pad.

     To clean your drive head, you sqirt a few drops of Cleaning Fluid onto
the Cleaner Diskette disk, insert it into the drive, and get the disk
spinning for 20 seconds. (Booting the Cleaner Diskette is one way to get it
spinning. If DOS or ProDOS is installed, doing a CATALOG is another way. As a
rule, do not let the disk spin more than about 20 seconds for any cleaning
cycle.
<<

     If it has been a few months since the last cleaning, cleaning your Disk
][ drive's r/w head is a good idea. It is not especially likely that your
problem is a dirty r/w head; but, cleaning it will eliminate one easy-to-cure
possibility.
 

     Usually, a write problem produces some kind of error message. If you get
through a write with no error and do not see any files when you do a CATALOG,
here are a couple things to check:

1- Are you using DD (double-density, 360kB) diskettes? If you try to use HD
1.2MB diskettes in an Apple II drive, you might get through a write but end
up with no readable files.

2- Is the program which does the writing running under a different DOS (like
ProDOS) than the DOS you use to check the disk (which might be DOS 3.3). If
the volume number you get is 001, the diskette is probably a ProDOS diskette.
To find out what's on it, you need to be running under ProDOS.

Or, if you are looking at the disk with Copy II+, it may help to know that
early DOS 3.3-only version of Copy II+ will often show only a volume number
when they try to CATALOG a ProDOS diskette.


     A pretty good test that your drive is working okay is to see if you can
INIT a diskette for DOS 3.3 and then boot it. For info about this and more
about DOS 3.3 and ProDOS, see the FAQs DOS page at
http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/Csa2DOSMM.html .



Rubywand