Let's identify our FDS drives!

[133MHz]

Attention to all Famicom Disk System owners!


Yes, that's right! Don't ask what FW can do for you, ask what YOU can do for FW!

Apparently you can tell if a FDS drive contains a 7201 chip just by looking at the writing on the front, over the disk access LED:

The problem is, my FDS units came swapped so I don't know which is which, and also we need a higher sample size to assure that this is a reliable identification method.

So, I'm going to teach you how to check out if your FDS drive contains the good 7201 chip.

Step 1:

• Remove the six screws on the bottom of the FDS drive
• Flip the drive over and remove the top cover
• Remove the two screws holding the battery compartment and set it apart

Now you should have something like this:
This is a 7201 drive. Notice the smaller power board (the green board near the power and RAM cart inputs).


And this is a 3206 drive. The power board is bigger because of the added write-blocking circuitry:


Step 2:

Now we're going to check the drive itself. You don't need to disassemble it to check out the chip that it contains. Just take a look at the drive mechanism, preferably under a bright light, and look through the hole marked in the picture (click it for a more general view of the area):


You may need to tilt the drive slightly, but you should be able to see what's the chip inside.
FD7201P = Good
FD3206P = Bad

A 7201 drive should come with a 'small' power board and a 3206 drive should come with a 'large' power board. If yours doesn't match (a 7201 drive with a large power board or vice versa) your FDS has been tampered with before, probably its drive mechanism or power board was replaced at some point in time.

This is the information needed:

• Japanese writing on the front, over the LED
• Power board size
• Chip present in drive mechanism

So, get your screwdrivers and post your findings!

[nintendodork]

FD7201P = Good
FD3206P = Bad

Oh God, what's the performance and/or drive difference...? 

[133MHz]

For playing games, absolutely nothing.
For rewriting disks, the 7201 drive will rewrite disks out of the box, the 3206 drive will require modification.

[nintendodork]

...


How do you rewrite disks with a 7201?

[nurd]

Carefully. It's a complicated thing

And 133Mhz is goign to tell us all how?

[133MHz]

Yes sir. Now get your screwdrivers and crack those FDSes open!

[manuel]

He's working on it, so please everybody check their drives and answer him.

I'll check mine as soon as I have the time to and can identify the box it is in.  

[nintendodork]

I'll check mine....

As soon as I get one xD!!

Auction for FDS, Family Robot, Famicom, games...ends in ONE HOUR...

Current highest bid.. $142.50

[Walky]

Yes sir. Now get your screwdrivers and crack those FDSes open!

I know how to write disks and all that fdsloader stuff, but I have absolutely no idea how to modify my 3206 drive, so I'm eagerly waiting for your tutorial!  

[turbo D]

Alright, here are my stats:

1. lots of japanese writing on led cover (left pic in 133mhz's description)
2. large power board
3. FD7201P

So apparently my fds has been tampered with prior to my ownership of it. I'm not surprised as about half of the screws holding it together were spun when I received the unit. I had just assumed it was from drive belt error evaluation and/or adjustment. heh. The serial on the bottom of the console says D1072158. Not sure if that matters or not.

[xyzzy32]

full "LAMP" "EJECT BUTTON"  japanese text
large circuitry
FD7201P chip

ordered used from Japangamestock and never had any disk errors in the little over a year I've used several disks on it.
weird, does this mean it's been modified?

edit: also, the inner battery compartment screws seemed a little stuck in their position, as if they'd never been removed, know what I mean? ah, I'm probably just noticing things that aren't there...
serial D1057037

[JC]

all text
large board
7201
#2,013,198

all text
large board
3206
#845,779

It might be helpful for people to edit their posts to include their disk drive's manufacturing number. For some reason, my 3206 has a smaller disk drive number than the 7201, which I didn't expect.

[ericj]

I assume there would be similar info on the Twin Famicom. Do you want this, too? I don't own a standalone FDS.

[satoshi_matrix]

I've already told you, but for the record, I have a FD3206P chipset with a FD7201 disk drive.  Serial # D1214260. hope this helps!

[133MHz]

This is getting weird

The large power board contains write-blocking circuitry, while the small power board does not. That means a small power board would be paired with a 7201 drive, right? But I'm seeing MASSIVE quantities of 7201 drives with large power boards! Those drives aren't able to write disks even if the drive is a 7201, because the large board disconnects the write line if it detects that you're trying to rewrite the whole disk. Also if you take the power board out, you'll see that the small one is a FMD-POWER-02 and the large one is a FMD-POWER-04 or 05. That means the larger power boards are a later revision.

Either Nintendo got sneaky and started sticking the newer power boards on older 7201 drives, or everybody's FDSes have been previously repaired or something. This is getting really confusing . Also it seems like the writing over the power LED doesn't mean anything .