My Zelda disk was working like a charm, until i tried to load Castlevania. Then the Zelda disk just threw out Error 22. Does anybody know why this might happen?
Unreliable disk mechanism that is hard to adjust.
Sorry for the late reply, but how could a disk throw off alignment?
I don't know if it could, but I believe the finickiness of the mechanism just shows its ugly face at unexpected times. You were probably just lucky to be able to load Castlevania, then unlucky with Zelda.
I'm not the right person to answer how to adjust it so that it always reads every disk.
Again, late reply, but has anyone else had issues where a disk could cause an entire drive to crap out?
Edit: You can't make it out very well on camera, but I just noticed this darker ring of sorts on the disk. IS ths a bad sign?
Well if the disk is dirty, I guess it could make the head dirty, so you might want to clean both the head and the disk.
OK. How do you recommend cleaning the disk?
I suppose 90%+ isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs. Be careful with the disk though.
Update: (Sorry for the necrobump) but this may be caused by my aptop's magnets corrupting the disk.
Are you sure? From what I've heard, regular magnets like the ones on electronics don't really harm disks that much under regular circumstances. Unless you've had your disks sitting next to your laptop for several years, I don't think your laptop's magnets are strong enough to spontaneously corrupt a disk like that, specially since you said it used to work well.
What I think it's happening is that your FDS is just very unreliable. The disk doesn't even look that bad, most of my disks have dark rings on them too.
The only thing I can recommend is to realign your drive, but as you might already know it's really difficult to get it to work like that, and I don't think there's an universal sweet spot for all drives to work with all disks, just trial and error until your drive seems to read all your disks.
Thank you. Hopefully my drive will accept my disk, or my drive can rewrite disks.
Or maybe I should swap the drive with another FDS drive?
If your FDS gives you that much trouble, I would definitely consider buying another one. Disk Systems aren't ludicrously expensive, so starting all over with a new unit might be the best option (and by that I mean getting a whole new system, not just parts of it).
Mine hasn't thrown a single error since I bought it (except for Err.2 which has more to do with my crappy power supply), you can still get beautifully working Disk Systems out there.
The thing is, I'm using a twin famicom, and I still want a working internal drive.
If that's the case then getting a working drive is better. Making the current one on your Twin Famicom work is trial and error as I said, and I unfortunately can't help you with that.
Alright, I assume I should look for known good FDSes?
Yes.
Look for a system that has been confirmed to work with pictures and all, and very importantly, look if the belt has been replaced preferably by the seller. If it has, it's your guarantee the system will work (assuming the seller has good reputation of course).
Don't bother with any "untested" systems, because untested (at least on eBay) is most of the time just a fancy way of saying "this thing hasn't worked for decades but I don't want to sell it as junk"; and even if they're saying the truth and had really not tested the thing since they used to play with it, it's pretty much guaranteed it no longer works.
It's all basic stuff to take into consideration really.
So I can transplant the drive?
I would assume so, both standalone FDS and Twin Famicom use the same Mitsumi drive, so they should be interchangeable.