Yahoo Groups archive

Fairlight-CMI

Index last updated: 2026-04-29 00:03 UTC

Message

RE: V11.39 as Image?

2013-11-19 by andrei.kudryavtsev@gmail.com

Daniel, I have 9.34 image with me, PM if you need it. I should also have 11.39 on HDD, but it's locked in my house in other country ;)


Regarding to Flashkit. I was tried to be polite as much as I can. I'm on the opposite side of that rhapsody. That is great solution for IIx owners for sure. Or if you have massive floppy collection you want to save in images. That's it. But in general that is wasting of money for CMI III owners. You can spend 500EUR more efficiently, that is still HxC with couple of more wires ))))))) If you need fast data transfer to PC or MAC - go for CMIOS9 with SCSI configuration. You can use external SCSI HDD for offline file transfer, means you have to power off systems before reconnection. I'd not recommend you to connect devices in one SCSI chain, in my case that was quit long path which caused signal inconsistency. Or may be even better to go for two SCSI ZIP100 - on CMI-III side and PC(MAC) side, just exchange zip floppy between them. It's slower than HDD, but that's just the matter of data size you're transferring.



---In fairlight-cmi@yahoogroups.com, <joe.sleator@...> wrote:

Hi Daniel,

Once you go (if you do) the flashkit route, which is a very, very clever solution, you'll only need a source of the K partition image set to get you on the road, of course.

But for heaven's sake, don't throw your old 8" floppies away! Do you have a good reason to suspect that your 8" drive(s) are actually out of alignment? Perhaps it really is an electronic failure, or maybe somebody has played with the jumpers. What model is it, do you know?

The only units I've ever seen with recurring alignment issues were 5.25" ones that "hammered" the heads at track 0 and possibly had QA issues during final assembly.
I've even got one which I purposely unscrewed and put on a fine-pitch vernier screw, for recovering data from some damaged source-code diskettes, but that was 5.25" PC format.
I can get that one back into "alignment" so it'll read and write harmoniously with other drives with no tools at all!

Having said that, I've had good results aligning other units with nothing more than a known-good diskette, or diskettes, and an oscilloscope and a screwdriver.

Cheers,
Joe



On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 12:05 AM, <daniel.rudin@...> wrote:

Hi Joe,

thanks very much for your help!!

Jep, i already cleaned the Solenoid and checked with all the testpoints that everything (index, track 0 etc) is in working condition.. so last part missing is the alignment of the head itself.. not possible to repair without a Alignmentfloppy and exerciser :-(

So, as sad as i am to not getting that floppys to work again.. seems i have no other Options left..

best regards

Daniel



---In Fairlight-CMI@yahoogroups.com, <joe.sleator@...> wrote:

Hi Daniel,

I'd recommend not giving up on those floppy drives just yet. If you can get around the top and bottom of them, make sure the plunger solenoid that loads the heads to the floppy can move freely and has not gummed up with old grease. You can carefully clean and re-lube it with WD-40 if it has, that has worked for me. I'd also pull off the data connector at the back and push it on and off a few times.

There should be a definite 'clunk' when the system starts trying to read the floppy. If you don't see the solenoid pull the plunger all the way, that's most likely your problem. It's very common.

I have actually never seen an 8" floppy drive fail electrically, but I'm sure they can.

In addition to that, the floppies themselves are pretty legendary as magnetic media goes. I've got readable media that looks like it spent 20 years at the bottom of an English duck pond.

If none of that works, I might be able to find a version of the cmi K partitions, not sure if it's 11.93 though.

Regards,
Joe



On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 9:28 PM, <daniel.rudin@...> wrote:
Dear Fairlightians,

as all my Floppydrives are starting to end their lives, i'm looking for help..

does anyone have imaged their V11.39 System-Harddisk with CMIOS9 and is willing to help me by passing that image over?

I have V11.39 on 8" but sadly, can't read the floppys anymore..

best regards and thanks
Daniel

daniel.rudin@...


Attachments

Move to quarantaine

This moves the raw source file on disk only. The archive index is not changed automatically, so you still need to run a manual refresh afterward.