Let's identify our FDS drives!

[Paul-FC]

FUK i have a 3206 drive...

[133MHz]

Popi, what about the power board?

[Paul-FC]

Popi, what about the power board?

i dunno

[133MHz]

Large power board, my friend. First drive that makes sense

[PatMan33]

Alrighty, the results are in.

1. Lots of text
2. Large board
3. FD7201P

[Walky]

Large power board, my friend. First drive that makes sense

I think mine's exactly the same 

[Ken Tama]

Im pretty sure mine is a 7201.  Ill check when I get home.

Please!, Please! put an instruction manual or video together on how to copy disks.  Ive been wanting to try this for a really long time.

[PatMan33]

It's being worked on. Check out this topic in the meantime.

[wolf9545]

Maybe this doesn't truly tell you which version of the Famicom Disk System you have.  I thought that one second after you turn on the famicom with the disk system plugged in you can hold down some buttons on player 2 controller and it would tell you which chip you had inside?

Instructions:
http://www.famicomworld.com/Workshop/RAM_Diagnostic_and_Version_Test.htm

[133MHz]

I have two different RAM adapters (one with a flat surface and the other with a textured one, and also different PCB layouts inside) and both say DEV NO. 2
And it seems that it has nothing to do with the disk drive itself, because the RAM adapter on its own reports that number, without the disk drive plugged in.

In conclusion, the self test is reporting a chip inside the RAM adapter, nothing on the disk drive itself.

[133MHz]

IMPORTANT DISCOVERY!

Having a 7201 drive chip is only half the battle! There are two write lockout systems inside any given FDS drive: the 3206 chip AND the large power board. The large power board contains a bunch of logic designed to thwart disk writing, so even if you own a 7201 FDS drive, you won't be able to rewrite disks if your power board is large (on a side note, I think this is one of the possible causes of people with 7201 FDSes building a FDSLoadr cable and not being able to rewrite a single disk - thus giving FDSLoadr a bad fame, that and the incorrect pinout ).

Good news: I've successfully disabled the write lockout on one of the large power boards, and the mod is really simple!

But again, Disk-Kun needs your help!
I've been able to mod the FMD-POWER-04 board, but there are more revisions of this dreaded, copy-protected board, and I can't mod what I don't have access to!
So, calling all large power board FDS owners, if you feel comfortable with taking apart your FDS, please remove the power board from the FDS casing and check the revision number, it should be near the power input in the format FMD-POWER-XX, where XX is a number. If yours is NOT an FMD-POWER-04, please send me or post high resolution pictures of both sides of the board, so I can come up with a write-lockout modification for them .

For ease of identification, I'll post pictures of both boards below:

If your board looks like this (rectangular), no need to worry. Your power board doesn't contain copy protection circuitry built in. Consider yourself lucky .


Now, if your board looks like this (larger than the first one, with an odd shape), your power board is copy protected. Please follow the steps mentioned above .


And remember...

[turbo D]

Ok, I checked and I have the FMD POWER-04. So to update my list, this is what I have:

1. Lots of text on led cover (left pic in 133mhz's description)
2. Large power board model FMD POWER-04
3. FD7201P chip
4. Serial # D1072158

[nintendodork]

Do Twins even have 7201 chips?  Since they were made in a later time, it doesn't seem they would.

[JC]

05 -- HERE and HERE.

[PatMan33]

Sorry, looks like I've got an FMD POWER-04 board.