Re: Focus Drive //e woes

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

William Katz wrote:
> So I decided to turn on my Apple //e computer two days ago, after having 
> it sit on my desk for about ~2 years.
> Everything seems to work except one part... my Focus Drive //e!! :(
>
> I turn on the //e, and for the first one or two seconds, it sounds like 
> the Focus Drive will boot up (I can hear the hard drive whirring), but 
> then the computer just sits there with the 'Apple //e' title on the 
> screen.
>
> Here are the specs to my //e:
>
> Apple //e enhanced (with 1MB RAM - Applied Engineering's Ramworks III)
> Apple //e color-composite monitor
> duo-disk drive (two 5 1/4" drives, controller card in slot 6)
> 8Mhz ZipChip //e
> Apple //e mouse (MouseCard in slot 4)
> AE Serial Pro (in Slot 2)
> Apple Super Serial Card (in Slot 1)
> Focus Drive //e 170MB (in slot 7)
> Kensington System Saver Fan //e
> CH Joystick
>
>
> I have tried a couple of things to fix this:
> I have taken the duo-disk drive controller card out of slot 6, put the 
> Focus Drive in slot 6, slot 5, slot 4. I tried "pr#7" from the AppleSoft 
> prompt.
>
> What happens after I start the //e now is, I press Ctrl-Reset then I type 
> "pr#6" to boot into a ProDOS disk.  It will start ProDOS, then after about 
> a minute or two, it will finish loading.
>
> I ran the SlotScan program and this is what the output produces:
>
> -----snip here-----
> SlotScan  Version 1.62                  Copyright 1989-1994 by Robert S. Claney
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Apple Computer Type: Enhanced //e
> Processor type: 65c02
> Total RAM: 1088K, 1.0625 Meg  (64K base memory + RamWorks-compatable memory)
>
> -----Scanning for peripherals-----
> Slot 1: Serial Card (#1)
> Slot 2: Serial Card (#1)
> Slot 3: 80-Column Card (#8)
> Slot 4: Mouse Card (#0)
> Slot 5:
> Slot 6: Disk ][ Card
> 	Device Size: 280 Blocks (140K)
> Slot 7: SmartPort Card:ERROR [39]
> -----snip there-----
>
>
> Does anyone have any thoughts on getting my 170mb (172mb) Focus Drive //e 
> working again?  I would prefer not to loose any of the data on it, but I 
> suppose worse case senario would be a low level format of the ibm ide 
> drive on the Focus Card??
>
> SlotScan shows "ERROR [39]" on the hard drive?

First order of business is to determing what ERROR 39 is!

Maybe the card is not resetting properly, or is not seated properly, or
is not making reliable contact with the slot connector.

Some chip on the main board or on the Focus card may not be making
good contact with its socket.

> What I have *not* done yet is try to unscrew the hard drive, then re-seat 
> it on the Focus Card itself.

That is a possible problem, but not the most common...

>  I have also *not* tried to put the hard 
> drive in an ibm computer and see if any disk checking utilities would fix it?

That wouldn't help, since PC utilities only "fix" disks with PC
formatting.  It would be a way to do a low-level format, but that
is almost certainly not the problem.

-michael

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