x3 floppy-drive repair question

sinaan · Post by **sinaan** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 10:16 pm

hello everyone,
I have a problem with the fdd of my korg X3, that I recently bought (used) .
The problem is when I try to format a disk, the stepper motor seems to be working, cause it moves normally, however when it is finished the display reads DATA ERROR
I already exchanged the belt, so this could not be the source of the problem.
I also cleaned the heads with 70% alcohol.
And as far as I could see the stepper motor follows the path that it should.
The sounds that I hear are exactly the same as a normally functioning fdd.
So all my attempts to fix the problem myself have failed so far, yet I refuse to give up and I am hoping someone here might know a reason and/or solution for it, without the use of an emulator, cause I would like to repair the fdd and keep the keyboard in its Original state.

SoundWerx · Post by **SoundWerx** » Thu Jul 02, 2015 2:20 am

Hi, I had the same trouble with my X3R. I had also replaced the belt with a brand new one and cleaned the heads as well. I think after all that it was a head alignment problem.

Anyway, I also didn't want to use an emulator for the same reason you don't. So I put the old belt drive into storage and replaced it with a brand new black belt-less drive. The same as you would have put in an older PC.

This retains the look, the feel and operation of the X3/X3R but has a floppy drive that should last much longer and give trouble free operation. To make this work you do need an adapter.

Check out "feer1" on eBay, you could make these yourself (the schematics are available) but this guy does such a nice job and these work perfectly:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/KORG-X2-Emula ... 463d09c92b

good luck

smoonbeast · Post by **smoonbeast** » Thu Jul 02, 2015 2:56 am

I've been tortured by old disk drive problem too.
My solution was to use regular FDD drive.
I de-soldered 24-pin connector from old drive (that connects ribbon), and made a connector board.
Drilling so many holes, was annoying part of this project.
Backside of this method, is the FDD lamp is always on.
If you brave enough to itch'n'drill such a board, I can post details, and Sprint-Layout project.[/img]

sinaan · Post by **sinaan** » Thu Jul 02, 2015 10:51 pm

thank you for your replies. Smoonbeast, I would appreciate it very much if you could post the info that you mentioned.

smoonbeast · Post by **smoonbeast** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 12:10 am

Sorry for delay.
Here's what I did.http://ifolder.su/43903500
I took schematics from korg x3 yahoo group, and just made pcb.

BTW Have you tried PCM cards on your X3?

sinaan · Post by **sinaan** » Mon Aug 03, 2015 9:24 pm

smoonbeast wrote:Sorry for delay.
Here's what I did.http://ifolder.su/43903500
I took schematics from korg x3 yahoo group, and just made pcb.

BTW Have you tried PCM cards on your X3?

thanks for the help Smoonbeast, unfortunately your link turned out to be in Russian, wich I can not read

I don't have PCM cards, and I'm not looking for any at the moment. Like I tried to say before; fixing my fd is all that matters to me, not how to save data

smoonbeast · Post by **smoonbeast** » Mon Aug 03, 2015 11:52 pm

Oh! I beg my pardon for that site, they have no ENG switch indeed!

I've uploaded to another fileshare KORG X3 FDD ADAPTER.zip

I was annoyed the same problem with fdd. Hope this helps.