3B1 - floppy works ONLY to load diagnostics, then :-(

[Bud Hovell]

I originally posted this problem in unix-pc.general, without response,
so.....

We have a 67-meg/2-meg 3B1 here that has a weirded-out floppy-drive. Over the
past several months, it has suddenly stopped working on several occasions,
and each time (until recently) the shop diddled it over and it started
working again. Until now. We seem to have a gremlin.

Can anyone suggest a cause for why our floppy-drive *will* faithfully load
up the diagnostics, but will *not* otherwise read, write, or format discs
in normal operations? This applies whether we are using the user-agent, or
giving commands directly to the device from the command line, or selecting
commands via the diagnostics menu. Is broke!

We are assuming the drive itself is ok, since it went to the shop for this
problem a time or two before and, on the last trip, it checked out fine on a
bench-test by a specialist. (At that time, we got it running again, and it
lasted just three days. It appears something is just slowly degrading, but
what?)

Once the diagnostics are loaded, we get errors each time we try to operate
the drive, and a *REALLY* loud CRUUUUUNCHHHING noise when we try to read
(if I recall) a disc. I wasn't brave enough to press it any further.

This is the current listing on the device-drivers:
brw-rw-rw-  1 root    sys       0, 32 Jan  1  1970 /dev/fp020
brw-rw-rw-  1 root    sys       0, 33 Jan  1  1970 /dev/fp021
crw-rw-rw-  1 root    sys       4, 32 Sep 12 18:52 /dev/rfp020
crw-rw-rw-  1 root    sys       4, 33 Aug 13 15:28 /dev/rfp021

I even replaced the WD1010 chip - desperation move on my part: hope springs
eternal :-).

I'm not sure if this info is complete enough to provide significant clues,
and will be happy to get/give more, if someone can just tell me what/where
to check for it.

Thanks for any help you can offer! We're desperate.

(Gil: if I've missed something important to relate here, I'd appreciate it
if you'd comment regarding our exchange of information about this little
puzzle.)


 
                                 Bud

UUCP: ...{tektronix|sun}!nosun!whizz!bbh
MOTD: "Don't just `believe' in miracles - *rely* on them!" - anon