Commodore 1541, 1541C floppy drive head-error
Lately quite a few Commodore 1541 and 1541C have come to us with reading errors.
When reading the disk, the floppy drive rejects the instruction with a flashing LED, accompanied by a strong head movement sound. There is also a case when the reading is perfect but the formatting is rejected with the same error. In most cases, this is a head error if you have previously cleaned the head and tested the disk in another drive.
The Commodore 1541 floppy head works on the same principle as the head of the tape. There are two coils in the head that take care of reading, writing, and deleting. These coils are very thin copper wires with derecognitions.
The head itself is a coil placed in a plastic frame, molded with resin due to mechanical damage and mechanical fixing. After 30 years, the resin begins to shrink, causing either the peeling of the lacquer coat of the wire and make them come together, or tearing the outlet strings. In our case, no matter which one happens, the R/W/E error will be the end result.
The bad news is that unfortunately it cannot be fixed. We can simply remove the mechanics from another drive if its head is still good. But how long this head will work… no one knows.
This head error can be predicted for almost every Commodore 1541 and 1541C. In the case of 1541/II, we have not yet experienced such a problem only in the case of mechanics, that are equipped with direct drive (non-belt) mechanics. Whether this is because other resins were used there or because they appeared much later… we don’t know yet. If the last one, we still have some time with type 1541/II drives.
When buying a Commodore 1541, 1541C, 1541/II floppy drive, look not only if it reads but also if it formats properly. This is because we can check every head function. Formatting instruction: OPEN 15,8,15,"N0:CSZ,01":CLOSE 15 then the scanning: LOAD "$",8 then listing the contents of the disk: LIST If these ran well, the head (and the electronics) are still good.
Facebook post on the topic can be read here:
Commodore 1541, 1541C floppy drive head error
bad floppy disk drives accumulated within a short time
the leading out of the coils from the resin-molded head is clearly visible
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