Floppy Drive Not Seeking Boot Sectors - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: granzeier
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2025, 09:24:21 pm
content: My new Bondwell B200 powers up, and does the memory count, but then, when it tries to boot from the floppy, the drive spins up, but there is no sound of the head stepping to try to read the boot sector. Does anyone have any idea what may be causing this, or how to fix it?

author: BradC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2025, 09:32:38 pm
content: Bondwell? Wow, that's a name I haven't heard for a few years. I had a Model 2 back in high school. Sorry, can't help but your blast from the past sent me off down the memory lane rabbit hole.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2025, 12:18:29 am
content: Why would it need to step? Did you try just waiting a bit?

author: granzeier
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2025, 12:51:00 am
content: Quote from: BradC on July 21, 2025, 09:32:38 pmYes, the Bondwell Model 2 - the CP/M system. That is the one that I was looking for when I saw this Bondwell B200 MS-DOS system. I would love to find one of those.

author: granzeier
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2025, 12:55:27 am
content: Quote from: Benta on July 22, 2025, 12:18:29 amIt's just that I always remember hearing the stepping of the heads on other computers. The other day, I even took the MS-DOS 3.30 boot disk from this Bondwell computer and put it into my Zenith SupersPort (80C88) to try booting (it normally boot from the HD, but can boot from the floppy.) The SupersPort did the normal zip-zip-zip in seeking the boot sector on the floppy disk.It sure won't hurt to let it try for longer time. I'll give that a try, thanks.

author: indeterminate
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2025, 01:44:17 am
content: A couple of mechanical faults that i have seenA small peas of foam used to apply pressure to the head perishes and the head fails to contact the disk surface.The grease on the lead screw / head guides hardens and the head is stuckThe spindle drive belt perishes and the disk spins to slowly

author: granzeier
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2025, 06:54:38 pm
content: Quote from: indeterminate on July 22, 2025, 01:44:17 amThanks, that reminded me of the troubles with floppy drives. I have seen this before, and it seems easy enough to fix, but while thinking about it I decided to try a floppy drive emulator. I found one on Amazon, and have ordered it - it should arrive by Thursday. That will hopefully let me boot, and also allow several different images (another thing that I want to try is CP/M-86, hopefully that will work.)If this GoTek clone works, then I will try cleaning the drive, and set it up as the A: drive again, and switch the emulator over to the B: drive for a bunch of program/data disks.Thanks again, for the ideas.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2025, 12:56:01 am
content: Our toys are getting old! I have a 1980s hard drive, the style with an exposed stepper motor, it was also seized up, didn't move.Putting a single drop of Nutrol control cleaner and lubricant on the shaft, letting it sink in for about 5 minutes, loosened it up.I also have a 3.5" drive with apparently dead stepper motor, in that case I suspect the H-bridge driver chip. I have yet to make the effort to confirm the fault.But don't give up man, don't use an emulator... nooo.... stick to floppies and steppers and greasy screw drives. Fun!

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2025, 08:06:05 am
content: The first track, and also the boot sector is at the exterior of the floppy, or track 0. If the floppy is already at the track 0, it might not move the heads at all, because it finds the TRK0 signal already asserted.Remove the floppy disk, then gently pull the heads somewhere in the middle. Then insert the floppy-disk, and try to boot. Does the floppy-drive drives the heads to track 0 in this case?