Problem with "route 66 studios" mpc60 floppy drive

Hi,
I have ordered an mpc60 floppy drive on 20th of December and it got here at last. (after almost 3 months).

I installed it and i felt a relief when i had all my mpc60 beats banging again.

Everything seemed ok...

The drive must be a 1.44MB drive but it seems to work fine with the mpc60.
I have some 1.44MB disks that i used with my old drive but with this drive i have to put a sticker or a peice of tape to cover the hole on the right side of the disk so that the floppy reads it as 720kb so it can work with the mpc60 OS.
It cannot read the 1.44 disks with out that sticker.

Just about an hour ago I tried to format an 1.44MB disk and the mpc couldnt find a disk in the drive. WTF???

For all those who will tell me that i should use only 720kb disks... well i already have a mpc60 formated 720kb disk, i copied its contents to other disks and tried to format that disk aswell...

WTF???

I still get that message:

There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk. [Error code: ff80]

Has anybody come across this problem?
Is it the "route 66" floppy that causes this?
Is there a way to fix this?
Should i put my mpc60 in my hardware museum and move onto something more in date?

Any advise apreciated.

Thanx.

PS 1: Its a good thing i have about 20 formatted empty disks. If i cant find an answer Im gonna use it till my 20 disks get full...

PS 2: This is where i bought my drive from
http://www.hometown.aol.com/mishon66/Drives1.html

let me guess... you are running OS version 3.10e?

if i remember correctly there was a problem with drives from route66 not working with 3.10e...

even though last time i checked their site i thought i read that they now had drives that work with the updated OS version...

i dont know, ive heard too many bad stories concerning route66 and the 60 community... ive got more options since im an LA resident and both FORAT and VST are within an hour from me...

but yea, with such a topic being posted, it is imperative that you give all available information regarding your situation, this includes the OS version your running...


good luck...

it would also be extremely informative to other 60 users to tell exactly what floppy drive brand and model number that route66 is selling for 60 floppy replacements... what model drive did you get from them? you paid $74 right?

just noticed that the route66 page you linked DOES say that their replacement drives work with ALL OS versions...

my best guess is that you can fix it with a jumper setting... post up the drive jumper settings that you gotthe drive in, and any other jumper configuration that works... check the 60 bible/faq at the top of the 60/3k forum for more in depth info...

call those fukrs and tell em whats up if you cant figure it out...

i paid $74 for it.

I am located in Greece so there was another $34 for EXTREMELY URGENT shipping. If i had paid for normal post I'd get it in the summer....

my OS is v2.12.

The drive itself doesnt reveal any brand name. I might have to take the shell off to see if it said anything.

There ARE jumpers in the back and i will unmount the drive tomorrow to take notes of the jumper positions.

good schit...

there SHOULD be a sticker with a brand and model number on the back of the drive near the jumpers... but according to popular opinion of route66's business model, i assume they were probably smart enough to take the sticker with the drive info off of the drive before they sent em out... if there isnt any indication of what brand/model the drive is, see if you can see where a sticker USED TO BE and was removed...

DJ ALX wrote:There ARE jumpers in the back and i will unmount the drive tomorrow to take notes of the jumper positions.

when you do that, compare your jumper settings with the settings shown in the 60 FAQ/bible at the top of the first page in this forum... let us know your settings if in fact they are different than the ones previously documented...

see this thread: http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php ... eac+jumper
I tried it and it seems to work and then when you format and read disks you have to tape up the hole on the disk if your using high density disks. Good Luck!

see this thread: http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php ... eac+jumper
I tried it and it seems to work and then when you format and read disks you have to tape up the hole on the disk if your using high density disks. Good Luck!

I happen to own an Kurzweil K2000RS and i formatted a floppy as a 720kb there and guess what??? IT WORKS!!!!

I WILL try checking the drives jumpers but at least I know I can format disks on the Kurzweil..

Thank all y'all for your help!!!

ALX

you formatted DD floppies on the k2000 and you were able to succesfully save and load from these same disks inside the mpc60?

fobedafied wrote:you formatted DD floppies on the k2000 and you were able to succesfully save and load from these same disks inside the mpc60?

YES!!!

At first i thought that the disk i wanted to format was damaged or something. Then i formated it on the k2000 to see if it formats it even for just k2000 usage.
Then after posting on this forum, I accidently inserted that k2000 disk in the mpc60 to save something. It had the same color of an other mpc60 disk that had some space left in it. When i went to save i saw like 718kb available and said WTF? Then I figured out that that was the disk that I formated on the k2000!!! Which i beleive is an 720kb MS-DOS file system.

I actually found a post about the route 66 floppy jumpers

http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=27813&highlight=teac+jumper

So im sure im ok... Just wanted to let you know that the k2000 formats the disks for mpc60 too... Maybe other devises do that aswell..

Yes ther IS a sticker on it ... here is the pic :



Here is the jumpers it came with:



Here is what i did so it can format the disks:




When i put those 2 additional jumpers, when i open the mpc its takes about 10 seconds to boot.
It didnt take that long. It usually took like 3-5 secs to boot.
I hope everyhting is ok and the 10-15 sec delay wont cause any other problems to my mpc60.

I have been experiencing the exact same problem with the exact same floppy drive. I took all the above steps, jumpers in the proper positions, but still can't get things to work. At this point I'm just going to play around with jumper settings until something works unless someone can point me in the right direction.

Fobedafied stop talking out your ass, you don't know the first thing about drives or how they address with the MPC60, there has NEVER been an issue with floppy drives and MPC OS versions.

Guys the Route66 drive works just fine if your using the correct floppy discs, read your manual!!! the MPC60 is a DSDD 720K unit, this means the MPC60 has a DSDD 720k FDC controller CHIP SET on the main board and is only setup for DSDD 720K discs. Now in the past you could get away with the HD discs with the 10yr old original drive because it was also made 10yrs ago, these older drives do a poor job of media detection and allow the HD discs to pass. Any NEW 2000 to the current 2007 drives are vary good at media detection and only allow disc media that matches the FDC controller CHIP SET in the MPC60. I hope this clears up any confusion and if anyone has ANY question about floppy drives and the MPC just ask me.

Andy0

Fobedafied stop talking out your ass, you don't know the first thing about drives or how they address with the MPC60, there has NEVER been an issue with floppy drives and MPC OS versions.

Guys the Route66 drive works just fine if your using the correct floppy discs, read your manual!!! the MPC60 is a DSDD 720K unit, this means the MPC60 has a DSDD 720k FDC controller CHIP SET on the main board and is only setup for DSDD 720K discs. Now in the past you could get away with the HD discs with the 10yr old original drive because it was also made 10yrs ago, these older drives do a poor job of media detection and allow the HD discs to pass. Any NEW 2000 to the current 2007 drives are vary good at media detection and only allow disc media that matches the FDC controller CHIP SET in the MPC60. I hope this clears up any confusion and if anyone has ANY question about floppy drives and the MPC just ask me.

Andy0