Is my 1571 disk drive broken?

[Sega dude]

I have a Commodore 1571 disk drive for my C=128. When I load disks into it and load programs sometimes the green drive light just flashes rapidly. Noting else happens. What does this mean? Is it broken?

[LokalHorst]

The blinking itself only means that something went wrong, while accessing the disk, not necessarily that the drive is defective. (more likely the disk is flaky)
It might be as simple as 'file not found' - you can tell more if you read the error channel, when this happens. If you're in native mode, tap <shift> <F7> or type monitor to enter the ML-monitor, at it's prompt type @<return> and you'll see the error-msg. of drive #8

I almost forgot - you can also type ?ds$ in basic 7

[Sega dude]

Its gotten worse since I wrote this. Now GEOS won't boot. It worked fine earlier today. I get the error in the screenshot below. Also a diskette that worked fine before doesn't anymore. I typed LOAD"*",8,1 just like it said on the diskette and it says ?FILE NOT FOUND ERROR. Could I have damaged it when I was bring it up from the basement? I moved it with a diskette inside. I didn't drop it or anything and I worked fine last nite.



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[RobertB]

     A mounting pin to the drive head hinge could have moved out of place.  Open up the upper half of the 1571 case.  Look down at the upper head hinge and slide the silvery pin back into place.

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