I have a new to me A4000.
I had to solder in a few new tracks to get the clock and Cmos working along with a new 1.2v Varta battery.
If i delete boot.
When i try to format, either 800K or 1.6M the drive correctly steps forwards as expected. When it enters the verify stage I get "Disc error 23 at :0/0000C00"
I have no evidence that the drive worked before it was sent to me.
I tried substitution of an Amiga HD doctored drive from Panasonic, which gives the identical fault code, it also reports "Drive Empty" if you clear the error.
I know the A4000 drive is a HD and i have a A3000 with a non HD drive (But known working) so i thought i would substitute this drive across (working on the A4000 manual which says HD where fitted). with this drive I can consistently format a disc but again run into an error "Drive Empty" when it tries to verify (I no longer get the DISC error message) . from then on until i reset the machine it will complain drive empty, even if i eject and reinsert the disc.
SO the 3 conditions are
HD drive always gives "Disc error 23 at :0/0000C00" after formatting and may give this error or "Drive Empty" when you mount.
Amiga drive gives "Disc error 23 at :0/0000C00" , but then always comes back with "Drive Empty" upon mount
SD disc always gives "Drive Empty" after formatting or mount
Neither drive will read any disc and all say "Drive Empty" if you try to mount the disc.
They both whirr and step or stutter. Occasionally the HD heads will move to something like track 40 and try seeking then returning to track zero.
In my mind its either the drive or the controller chip. I thik i have excluded the drive as it will not work with any of the 3 drives A4000, Amiga, A3000.
If it is the machine as far as i can see from the circuit diagram all roads lead to the 82C711 as the culpirt there appear to be no sacrificial buffer chips in the path.
I would be gratefull if there are any observations you could make.
Andy
I had to solder in a few new tracks to get the clock and Cmos working along with a new 1.2v Varta battery.
If i delete boot.
When i try to format, either 800K or 1.6M the drive correctly steps forwards as expected. When it enters the verify stage I get "Disc error 23 at :0/0000C00"
I have no evidence that the drive worked before it was sent to me.
I tried substitution of an Amiga HD doctored drive from Panasonic, which gives the identical fault code, it also reports "Drive Empty" if you clear the error.
I know the A4000 drive is a HD and i have a A3000 with a non HD drive (But known working) so i thought i would substitute this drive across (working on the A4000 manual which says HD where fitted). with this drive I can consistently format a disc but again run into an error "Drive Empty" when it tries to verify (I no longer get the DISC error message) . from then on until i reset the machine it will complain drive empty, even if i eject and reinsert the disc.
SO the 3 conditions are
HD drive always gives "Disc error 23 at :0/0000C00" after formatting and may give this error or "Drive Empty" when you mount.
Amiga drive gives "Disc error 23 at :0/0000C00" , but then always comes back with "Drive Empty" upon mount
SD disc always gives "Drive Empty" after formatting or mount
Neither drive will read any disc and all say "Drive Empty" if you try to mount the disc.
They both whirr and step or stutter. Occasionally the HD heads will move to something like track 40 and try seeking then returning to track zero.
In my mind its either the drive or the controller chip. I thik i have excluded the drive as it will not work with any of the 3 drives A4000, Amiga, A3000.
If it is the machine as far as i can see from the circuit diagram all roads lead to the 82C711 as the culpirt there appear to be no sacrificial buffer chips in the path.
I would be gratefull if there are any observations you could make.
Andy
Statistics: Posted by andyruwilliams — Mon Dec 08, 2025 1:32 pm