troubleshooting an SA-400 disk drive

From: Eric Chomko <vze2wsvr_at_verizon.net>
Date: Tue Jun 10 21:29:00 2003

I have been monitoring this new problem for a few days. Actually,
it first surfaced weeks ago, but I had zero time to look into it.

Anyway, I have a three drive Smoke Signal Broadcasting disk system,
in which one drive, 2 (last one on 0,1,2 chain), has this nasty whine
when
powered on. The other two drives work and sound fine.

The faulty one's driver motor never stops when powered on whereas the
other two do. The others must have the last one due to the terminator
which functioned correctly in the chain. I have managed to pull the bad
drive and managed to get the two working ones to work with terminator
resister moved to drive 1. I put 2's (bad drive) large electronics board
onto 1's drive mechanism and it works fine. That leaves 2's drive
mechanism
as being bad; either the small circuit board or the drive motor.

Also, when 2 is selected the red LED does light up, but no diskette can
be read.

Something is forcing the drive motor to stay on or the drive motor
itself is defective.

Any suggestions? I plan to put 1's (good drive) small electronics board
onto 2's drive mechanism to see if the drive motor control or the drive
motor itself is bad. Left my soldering iron at work. :^(
Received on Tue Jun 10 2003 - 21:29:00 BST