exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Posted: **11 Feb 2025 11:27**

Hi all,

I'm having some issues with my internal Epson SMD-480 inside my Mega STe.

I was having sporadic read issues, normally from track 78 onwards. So I delved inside and using a cotton bud gently cleaned the heads with alcohol.

However, after this procedure, the drive didn't work at all :( I think I may have slightly knocked the read heads. I've adjusted the two screws located above the drive head and now the drive reads the boot sector of a disk - but not the FAT.

Any ideas or is it heading to the Atari skip in the sky.....

I know the Amiga had alignment disks, is there something similar for the ST? I'm an au-fait with the WD and DMA loaders so could code a program that read a particular track.

Cheers
Grazey

Posted: **11 Feb 2025 11:41**

Hi @grazey

FYI this post had a duplicate, not sure why, but I've deleted it.

Cheers

RJ (Admin)

Posted: **14 Feb 2025 13:40**

grazey wrote: 11 Feb 2025 11:27 Hi all,

I'm having some issues with my internal Epson SMD-480 inside my Mega STe.

I was having sporadic read issues, normally from track 78 onwards. So I delved inside and using a cotton bud gently cleaned the heads with alcohol.

However, after this procedure, the drive didn't work at all :( I think I may have slightly knocked the read heads. I've adjusted the two screws located above the drive head and now the drive reads the boot sector of a disk - but not the FAT.

Any ideas or is it heading to the Atari skip in the sky.....

I know the Amiga had alignment disks, is there something similar for the ST? I'm an au-fait with the WD and DMA loaders so could code a program that read a particular track.

Cheers
Grazey

Check out my alignment fun :

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5404&start=10

Posted: **17 Feb 2025 10:43**

Thanks jmd. Nice guide :) though slightly above my technical expertise and the equipment I hold :)

Shame we don’t have those old computer clubs when you could take some none working hardware down.

Grazey

Posted: **17 Feb 2025 14:15**

I don't know if you've considered it, but I've replaced all mechanical drives with nice OLED Gotek's in my Ataris. But I understand there are many people who love an original drive. For me personally, they used to be the bane of my retro hobby, so I was glad to get rid of them :)

Posted: **17 Feb 2025 15:09**

Here is a post I made a while ago about changing the caps on a Epson 400/480 if you need to do that.

exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Epson SMD-480

Epson SMD-480

Re: Epson SMD-480

Re: Epson SMD-480

Re: Epson SMD-480

Re: Epson SMD-480

Re: Epson SMD-480