Replacement floppydrive S950 don't work

Hi guys,
Got a serious question about my s950. I took out my old floppydrive
cuz it wasn't working. Replaced it with a brand new replacement drive
provided by VSTservice. Connected all the cables and before I put the whole
thing together I tested it once with a brand new floppy. It worked, and could
read the disk. So far so good...

I put the sampler back together and decided to finaly go make a bootdisk
for my keygroups. The F&$king drive didn't work.. ? I pressed the disk button
like 20 times, but no succes.

What's that? Flatcable? Got no clue.

My sampler been sitting there for two months now.. it saddens me. I gots to
work with it!

I really hope to find an answer soon. I know the s950's being old as they are
are fragile pieces of equipment. But this I didn't expect.

Take it back apart and Troubleshoot. Comes with the territory of owning and repairing vintage gear.

check the soldering points of the floppy power cable on the PSU.

peace

@peterpiper

Could you be a bit more specific? I can hear the drive reading the disk when
I press the disk button. So power is good right? Or....

Do I have to check the solderingpoints visualy or should I check them with
a multimeter?

master-ceo wrote:Take it back apart and Troubleshoot. Comes with the territory of owning and repairing vintage gear.

What do you think I have been doing for the past few days? Never had a problem
with my MPC, and I opened it up and replaced parts a million times. Also brought allot
turntables and mixers back from the dead. Never came across a problem like
this though...

I wouldn't call the S950 fragile, they're pretty rugged.

Did you install the ribbon cable upside down?

Can you take a picture of the drive and/or post the make and model so we can make sure it's the right one?

It's a replacement drive by VSTservice. Should be a good one. And like I allready
said, it WORKED once, before closing up the sampler.

I allready tried putting in the flatcable upside down. No change. The one time
it did work the cable was inserted the same way like with the old drive.

But i'll put some photo's online.

to be continued...

I remember I bought a replacement s950 floppy drive on ebay months ago. The seller said he can install it for me for $75 plus freight. I was like eff that so I installed it myself. At first it didn't work because the ribbon cable was upside down. So I deinstalled it and put it back again. Still didn't work so I called the seller and told him that its a faulty drive. He said that their drives are fully compatible with the S950. He told me to check the soldering joint on the connector pins to see if they became loose when I pulled it. (this can be tought to pull out so you gotta hold your breath.)

It turned out that when I was pulling one of the cable, the soldering joints from the connector became loose. I had to desolder and resolder the connector pin.

I would check the soldering joints on the connecting pins.

Maybe a dumb question, but it's better if I ask...

Exactly what soldering point are you talking about? The soldering points on the big PCB where the other end of the flatcable goes, or the soldering points on the PSU where the
other end of the power cable goes?

And does your drive work now?

Guys, I really appreciate the help. You have allready given me more support then the actual company that sold me the drive.
A lot of people claim that VStservice gives good technical support. They e-mailed me today saying " We don't really give technical support" wtf??

I'm talking about the soldering joint on the PSU where the other power cable goes. The guy that sold me the replacement told me that if you are not careful enough when pulling the connector out of the socket the soldering joint can get loose. It's very fragile.

I would check to see if you bent any of the pins on the connector also. Hope that helps.

Aight,
I'll def check that first thing in the morning.
( Over here it's 23:56, gonna take a nap and watch second half of knicks game)

A guy that claims to be an expert in fixing old samplers and such told me that I should try DD disks, because the Akai would never read HD disks properly.

Is that true?
Are there people here that have succesfuly replaced their drives with a new one
and then had to feed it DD disks, because HD didn't work?

I can't check this, because I only have HD disks ( brand new )

Thought I'd mention this to you guys before I open the thing up once again.

The s950 works with HD as well as DD

however, it could be the disk drive you installed is a DD one.....you can test as follows...cover the hole on one of the disks you have with some sellotape.....theres a two holes on the disk...one with bit of black plastic to write protect it....you need to copy the other hole....it tricks the disk drive into thinking its a DD disk

top left corner....

Haha! I'm bugging out here! For some reason the drive worked without any
problem all evening, letting me make a boot disk with my keygroups and stuff...

Happy I finally have a bootdisk... pfew..

When the unit was on for about an hour or two it did start to **** up again.
Sometimes not recognizing my disk, sometimes it did.

Also I noticed a faint humming noise comming from inside the unit. Anyone knows
if this is normal? Never noticed it before, but it could me me though....

Anyways I feel I'm getting a step closer to having a fully functional s950.
Thanks to the help and tips of you guys.
Appreciate it!

Hello,

i made a webpage with akai s950 floppy drive pinout.
I can also provide you fully working floppy drive (new or used) at low cost (i have a job to earn money).
link: http://floppy.shugart.free.fr/page.php? ... /index.htm

Thanks

Sébastien