---
title: 'Amstrad PC1640 - Hard Drive'
url: 'https://dmcmillan.co.uk/blog/amstrad-pc1640-hard-drive'
markdown: 'https://dmcmillan.co.uk/blog/amstrad-pc1640-hard-drive.md'
date: '2021-07-17'
description: 'When I received the machine, the hard drive — a Tandon TM262 connected to a Western Digital WD1002S — was not working correctly. When the machine was powered on, the hard drive spun up, but the usual MS-DOS tools, like FDISK and FORMAT, were unable to operate on the drive. Using the original Amstra…'
taxonomy:
  tag:
    - 'Amstrad PC'
    - 'Hard Drive'
    - Repair
---

# Amstrad PC1640 - Hard Drive

## [Amstrad PC1640 - Hard Drive](https://dmcmillan.co.uk/blog/amstrad-pc1640-hard-drive)

    17th Jul 2021   [Amstrad PC](https://dmcmillan.co.uk/blog/tag:Amstrad%20PC#body-wrapper) [Hard Drive](https://dmcmillan.co.uk/blog/tag:Hard%20Drive#body-wrapper) [Repair](https://dmcmillan.co.uk/blog/tag:Repair#body-wrapper)  

When I received the machine, the hard drive — a Tandon TM262 connected to a Western Digital WD1002S — was not working correctly. When the machine was powered on, the hard drive spun up, but the usual MS-DOS tools, like FDISK and FORMAT, were unable to operate on the drive.

Using the original Amstrad DOS 3.1, starting FDISK resulted in:

```text
Error reading fixed disk.
```

FDISK then quit.

Referring to the user manual, there is a tool on Disk 4 of the original disks that includes a tool called HDFORMAT *(link to be added)*.

Running this utility resulted in the error:

```text
Format failed.
```

HDFORMAT then quit.

### Low Level Formatting

Older hard drives require low level formatting, to ensure that all tracks and sectors are written to the disk. There are a number of ways of achieving this — in fact, as I understand it, the HDFORMAT tool that Amstrad provided is such a method.

In addition to this, there are a number of other ways to proceed.

#### Controller low level formatting

The WD1002S includes a low level format utility in the BIOS. This is started by running the DOS program DEBUG, and executing the following command:

```text
g=c800:5
```

The following output is displayed:

```text
WX2 Format Revision 7.0 (C) Copyright Western Digital Corp. 1985
(AH) = Relative drive number (0-7)
(AL) = Interleave factor (3 is standard)
Press "Y" to begin formatting drive XX with interleave YY
```

Pressing `Y` initiates the low level format, which takes a number of hours to complete.

![WD1002S low level format utility reporting Format Successful](https://dmcmillan.co.uk/images/7/e/c/4/5/7ec45ba93d96396949694c174d82c168d708054b-img20210717052404700.jpg "WD1002S low level format")

Unfortunately, in my attempt, although a "Format complete" message was displayed, the usual FDISK and FORMAT tools again did not work correctly, nor did the Amstrad HDFORMAT tool.

#### SpeedStor

SpeedStor is a utility program that has functionality to initialize a disk (low level format) and carry out diagnostic testing of the hard drive controller and drive.

I used version 6.03 — [download it here](https://dmcmillan.co.uk/user/media/SSTOR_603.zip).

Going through the menus, I was able to select the correct hard drive type, but there was a strange issue — even though it displayed the correct drive geometry:

```text
Cylinders     615
Heads           4
Sector/track   17
```

The top part of the display did not show the correct information.

![SpeedStor 6.03 Manual Setup Menu showing incorrect Tandon TM262 geometry](https://dmcmillan.co.uk/images/f/6/6/f/6/f66f65041f9df983dffe968743076a75f95181de-img20210717071013297.jpg "SpeedStor 6.03 Manual Setup Menu")

The initialize function did not work correctly, and even when setting manual geometry within the program, it was unable to complete successfully.

#### Debug low level format

[This page on minuszerodegrees.net](http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/ibm_xebec/ibm_xebec_llf_debug.htm) notes a way to manually low level format a hard drive, without a BIOS low level format utility.

This process was successful, and I was able to use FDISK to partition the hard drive, and FORMAT to prepare the disk for use.

The hard drive now operates correctly.

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---

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