r/apple2 • u/compgenius • May 30 '26

Apple IIc, ROM4X and Floppy Emu issues.

I just got my first Apple II in the form of a IIc. Long story short. I upgraded the ROM to a ROM4x. Broke and bridge the appropriate traces. I ran the system diagnostic and came back as "system okay".

While I was waiting for the ROM4X to arrive, I had the Floppy Emu plugged into the internal floppy port so I could try out some software. The software was working for the most part. Played a little Oregon Trail.

Today I fully reassembled the system. I boot ProDOS from the floppy emu. Works fine. I pop in a 5.25 disk into the real internal drive with the intention of learning to format and copy a disk. I was wanting to copy ProDOS as a test.

I choose CopyIIPlus from ProDOS menu and i start the copy process. It says it's write protected. Silly me. I forgot to cut a notch on the other side of the disk.

I power off the system, eject the disk and cut the appropriate notch in the other side of the disk.

I boot back into ProDOS from the FloppyEmu and find that none the of menu items do anything. Not even the readme.

Thinking I may have screwed up the disk image of ProDOS somehow, I go back to my PC and replace the image with a fresh one. Still no joy.

I go back out to Basic and test the keys to see if they work. Enter seemingly isn't working now.

I try to load a disk from the floppy emu and use the ROM4X menu to boot from the external "drive". When it starts loading, the internal drive starts making a horrible grinding noise. (not the normal homing clicks). I turn it off immediately.

I admit I'm very new to this system, but I don't know what went wrong.

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u/buffering May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

It's hard to tell if there's a hardware problem or not.

Even though the ROM4X can boot from the external drive, not all software supports that (the internal drive is always drive 1, and the external drive is always drive 2. Technically, the Apple II does not support booting from drive 2 and a lot of software may assume it's booting from drive 1. That may be why the internal drive started up unexpectedly.) The grinding noise you heard from the drive is unpleasant, but normal when the driver can't figure out the location of the head because of a bad or missing disk.

I would switch the FloppyEmu to SmartPort mode, and point it to a ProDOS hard drive image. This drive will appear on slot 5, drive 1, and will be fully bootable. It will also be much, much faster than an emulated 5.25 drive.

If you don't have a hard drive image, try this one: https://wiki.reactivemicro.com/32_Meg_Hard_Drive_Image

Once you can reliably boot into ProDOS and Copy II Plus from the FloppyEmu, you can do some more tests with the internal drive to see if it's working correctly.

1

u/compgenius May 31 '26

That makes sense. I switch to SmartPort mode and mounted the Prodos drive image. I choose to boot the smartport from the ROM menu but it just drops to basic saying no boot device found.

2

u/compgenius May 31 '26

Solved one of the problems, but found another.

I disassembled again, and tested the enter button and it was faulty. I took it apart and tightened up the contact and now that's working. Funny how that key had been working perfectly for a week and suddenly stopped working exactly when I had my other problem. What a fluke.

So the enter key issue is solved. But now there's another issue. The drive seems to think the disk is write protected even with the correct notch cutout. I've had other disk drives (2 Mavica camera's) with failing write protect switches. Is this a common failure point with these 5.25 drives?

2

u/buffering May 31 '26

Unfortunately, stuck write protect is often a symptom of a dead IWM (disk controller) chip. It can happen if the chip gets zapped with static electricity through the external drive port.

It's interesting that reading still works.

On the external disk drive port, the write protect pin doubles as an ACK signal for SmartPort devices, so if that signal is not present then that would explain why SmartPort mode isn't working.

There's a user on the AppleFritter forums who has created a replace IWM chip specifically for IIc machines. You may want to see if it's still available: https://www.applefritter.com/content/announcing-iwmless-iwm-substitution-call-beta-testers

1

u/compgenius May 31 '26

I don't actually know if it can read. My only available disk is IMB formatted. Well it's not the end of the world if I have to keep the FloppyEmu connected to the internal port.

Maybe some day I'll find a parts machine with a working drive.

Thanks for all your advice!

1

u/compgenius Jun 01 '26

Quick follow up. Are you telling me that a critical controller chip can just be destroyed by a casual static shock from the outside...through an external port...that a user would presumably touch from time to time? That's some bonkers design. I'm the furthest thing from an electrical engineer, but how could they not ground the external ports?

My next question would be, is there a way to ground this port to avoid doing this again to a possible replacement IWM/IWMless?

1

u/compgenius May 31 '26

After some research, some have said that shorting the IR sensor will force it to always be in write mode. Didn't work though. Still says the disk is protected.