Hi Larry,
I might have to get one from you. Seems like they are not available online anymore, or at least not easy to find online.
I ordered a refurbished floppy drive that was the same model that came out of the system. There's a backstory....
First of all, I don't do much work on player systems, but I'm always game to diagnose problems and usually figure it out.
Lady gets this piano with the house, but there are no disks. System doesn't power up, and I determine there is no power to that outlet. They got that circuit fixed, and I returned. Now it's powering up, but the display shows a message that the disk is not blank (and there's no disk inserted), and asks whether to format.
To me, that looked like a bad floppy drive, which was confirmed with a call to PianoDisc. The tech I talked with said, "Just order a new drive." So I tell her to get one from Amazon, and she orders it right there on the spot. I return the following week, install the drive, there is no error message, but the disks don't play. So I call PD tech support, and NOW HE TELLS ME it has to be a floppy drive with the same jumper configuration as the original drive. I'm thinking why the heck didn't you tell me that the first time????? But anyway....
So we located the exact model Sony drive and she ordered it. Tech support also said we really need a PD brand disk because some of the others might not work even though they're advertised as being PD compatible. Therefore, the request for a PD brand disk that is known to be working.
I don't need any more variables as I'm testing all this. Haha.
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John Formsma, RPT
New Albany MS
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-04-2020 12:10
From: Larry Fisher
Subject: Need a disc for PianoDisc PDS-128
i have quite a few. I won't be able to ship until around mid Feb.
Where did you get the new FD from? TEAC stopped making them quite a few years ago and they were quite special. When I heard they were going to terminate production I ordered 10 of them and they sold in six months.
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Larry Fisher
Owner, Chief Grunt, Head Hosehead
Vancouver WA
503-310-6965
Working the gravy zone for the rest of my days.
Original Message:
Sent: 02-04-2020 07:50
From: John Formsma
Subject: Need a disc for PianoDisc PDS-128
Does anyone here have a PianoDisc brand floppy disk that is good and known to work that I could use to verify that a system works or not?
I'm installing a new floppy disk drive and need to make sure it is working correctly. The owner is having a hard time locating name-brand PianoDisc floppies. All we need this disk for is to test the system.
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John Formsma, RPT
New Albany MS
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