Twin Famicom disk system belt replaced... and then nothing happens?

[toadhall]

I recently bought myself a Twin Famicom and of course, the drive wasn't working. Opened it up and saw that the belt was shot. No surprise there.

So I bought a new belt, followed this video tutorial *exactly*and put the system together again.

I switched on the Twin Famicom and on the screen where the Mario Bros mess around with each other, I inserted a disk (SMB2). The screen turns to say it's loading and then... nothing.

There's no sound of the disk motor motor whirring or clunking. Just silence. And the loading screen just sitting there...

Any ideas what's wrong? Am I SOL? Is the whole drive unit dead?
Post Merge: September 28, 2016, 08:17:53 pm
I'm guessing the motor is dead or something. I don't know.

Anyway, I hadn't thought much about it at the time but when I first opened the Twin Famicom, the connector to the drive was left dangling unconnected. And when I disassembled the drive, it was suspiciously clean of the rubbery gunk that the rotting band usually leaves around in the innards.

I suspect that someone in the past might have tampered with this drive already. Perhaps even attempted a repair and probably botched it. I'm calling this a loss and will order a replacement drive online instead. At least the rest of the TwinFami is in splendid shape.

[toadhall]

I am now suspecting that the power supply is the cause of all my misery!

Just realised the seller gave me a power supply that only supplies 1A instead of the required 1.25A. I noticed something wrong when I finally got SMB in the mail and plugged in to play only to be greeted with a loud hum and a terrible wavy, distorted picture... symptoms of an inadequate power supply. Will try to source the proper power supply and see what happens.

Also, jeez you guys... I feel like I'm in an echo chamber

[P]

I can't help you but I'll cheer you on!

Tell us if swapping the power supply helped.

[toadhall]

I can't help you but I'll cheer you on!

Tell us if swapping the power supply helped.

Haha! Thanks P.

And indeed, it was the power supply! I ordered a new power adapter but I began to feel impatient so I decided to hack an old PSone power adapter instead and solder the proper barrel jack on. (My PSone doesn't work anymore anyway.)

It worked! No wavy, distorted lines in the picture, buzzing sound is gone, AND BEST OF ALL, the disk drive immediately booted up when I shoved my copy of SMB2 in. ...And then it spat out an error 21. Ah well, but at least that is a different and unrelated problem. I shall consider this particular problem solved.

Unfortunately, in trying to fix what I thought was a broken drive, I may have inadvertantly damaged it in the process. We'll see. I'm hoping it's just a misaligned drive.

[P]

Error 21 means the string "*NINTENDO-HVC*" is incorrect. Strange error, I guess missaligned drive or there's goo on the header area of the disk surface.

[toadhall]

Ugh, I hope it's not goo on the disc surface!! I'll realign the drive when I have some free time. I'll stick to cart based games for now.