3.5 disk hardware use help please

[p035631b@pb.seflin.org (Joe Cairnes)]

I bought a used McD-800 drive.  It was operated with a VTECH 3.5 driver
card.  They worked for about two months, which I guess involved about an
hours use and about ten minutes of disk spining.  Then this part of the
system crashed.  I took the drive apart; but this not very aware person
did not see anything wrong, much less correctable. 

A Mac technician gave me a Shugart Venture hsi HabaDisk(tm) Mac.  He told
me it would work with an Apple ][; but if not to return it.  I connected
it to the VTECH.  I think it gave me one catalog of an old diskette; but I
am not sure that I remember correctly.  Essentially it did not work.  I
kept my promise to return it; but the tech would not accept it, and said
he was sure it worked and I should try formating with it. 

A red light comes on inside the disk drive when the system is booted, but
I have not been able to get the drive to work. 

I have tried to use Appleworks v 2.0, three versions of Copy ][ Plus, and
three versions of ProDos Users Disk to get both of these drives to work. 
These attempts were made through both VTECH drive 1 and 2 connections and
an Apple I/O controller.  I used ][es with three CPUs - 6502, 65C02, and
65SC02.  But I have not been able to get the drives to work.  I guess the
drives are bad; but I recognize that the interface cards may be bad or
that the HabaDisk(tm) Mac may not be suitable for the interfaces or a ][e. 

These attempts brought feedback such as:
I/O ERROR Disk is write-protected 
not type of device appleworks is able to format.
unable to find the disk 
no device connected 
no disk in drive 
warning - you are about to format a large disk, followed by: directory 
expected

How good does my guess that the problems are in the drives seem?  What
other drives can be used with which ][es?  What are my interface cards
good for? 

You can reach me by posting here or @: 

e mail
p035631b@pb.seflin.org
or
p035631b@pbfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us
but the second is longer and technically inferior.

U Snail
3655 S. 57 Avenue
Greenacres FL 33463

phone
561/433-4346







--

Joe Cairnes
p035631b@pbfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us and the path in the header both work, 
but the one in the header is shorter and technically superior.  However 
I am still set up to use text - only text.