Plug the cable into the PC's parallel port, then plug the other end into either of the din sockets at back of the drive. PC's ports are very sturdy, but if you need to take care, turn off the machine before connecting. The 1541 probably won't mind hotswapping the serial cable at the other end.
Get this:
from
Unzip into C:/Program Files/Opencbm
If you can, run cmd from Start -> Run -> type cmd [Enter]
Run instcbm, this installs the driver.
Next, put a disk in the drive and turn it on.
To test things, type in a CMD window:
If it comes up with a list of files, good!
Turn off the drive and unplug the cable and power.
Next, unscrew the 4 screws the underside of the drive, then lift the beige lid off. Put it somewhere safe.
There's a black thingy on a spring which lifts up, don't force it, and under that is a white head with a black line on it. This is what you'll need to clean every so often.
Be very careful to put the drive somewhere safe, so it doesn't get water or drinks spilt on it. That's the problem with taking the lid off. However, if you want, you can put the lid back on after cleaning the head, it just takes a bit longer.
Put the power and drive cables back in the drive, and turn it back on.
C:/Program Files/Opencbm\exe>d64copy 8 "my1stdisk.d64" 1: ********************* 2: ********************* 3: ********************* 4: ********************* 5: ********************* 6: ********************* 7: ********************* 8: ********************* 9: ********************* 10: *********************
It should get to 35. If there's any read errors, it will warn you.
This:
Should be 683 blocks. If it says 680, 3 errors occurred.
Here's where it gets interesting...
Some disks are old and because of this, the ferrite is coming off. This tends to clog up the drive head, hence the alcohol cleaner. Dab a little corner of the cloth in the alcohol and lift up the black thingy and clean the head with the corner of the cloth. Don't worry about breaking it, but don't wet the bit of felt at the underside of the black thingy.
So what happens with some disks is they report loads of errors, just the sector list flying up the screen. Don't worry, they're not permanently unreadable. You have to run d64copy several times.
The trick is to keep running d64copy until the errors get down to 0 - or close.
If you have a cluster of bad sectors (say, 11, 13, 14) then run d64copy thus:
And thus:
And:
This is much quicker than re-doing all 35 sectors. Just do it again and again and hope the sector clears up.
If you're lucky, run this on all the files on the disk, and hopefully the bad sectors won't be in those files. The bad sectors could be in 'unused' sectors!