1571 Drive Alignment

[swordfish1030]

I recently purchased 2  1571's in beautiful "looking" condition. One of them would not read or write, I tightened the
screws on the head and now it is working. The other was working from the start but seems a little off.

Is there any public domain or free ware that one can get to align the drive? or any mechanical means other then what I
did?

I also wiped the heads clean.

[airship]

You need to buy a 1571 alignment disk. They are written with absolutely clean alignment, and you can then adjust your drives to a real standard. Think of it as needing an good ruler before you can accurately measure something.

Centsible Software offers them regularly on eBay.

[swordfish1030]

Thank you for the information

[airship]

That's pretty much what the drive alignment disks do. They're just recorded on a rock-solid drive. Of course, it's all done with strobes and oscilloscopes to make SURE they're rock solid. That's what you're paying for.

You can certainly make your own alignment disk if you have a drive you can trust.

I've also heard of people just using a commercial software disk, the assumption being that when they're made they're quality controlled to be solid. The error in that thinking is that commercial releases were most often burnt on big expensive drives that would really saturate the media and burn a somewhat wide track to boot. Why? So that their tech support people wouldn't be swamped with calls from idiots with misaligned drives saying "I got a bad disk!"

Just one more footnote: 1571s are generally pretty solid, though they can go out. One of my two is too whacked to read MFM disks right now. 1541s, especially the old ALPS drives, are notorious, though, for knocking their heads way out.

[Andrew Wiskow]

Robert Bernardo pointed out on another forum that oldsoftware.com still has the Free Spirit alignment program for sale.  Go to http://www.oldsoftware.com/used64stuff.html and search for "alignment".  It's listed as "1541 Drive Alignment", but the actual full title of that program is "1541/1571 Drive Alignment".

-Andrew