Famicom Disk System Repair

[311fan311]

This system is notorious for difficult repairs, yet many people in the forums i have read say they were able to fix them.

I am asking anyone with any experience fixing these machines to help me in my frustration.

I replaced the belt, tested it, and it didn't work. (error 22)
I adjusted the speed of the motor in various positions, tested it, and it didn't work. (error 21, error 22)
I adjusted the head as outline in jfgoods.net website, tested it, and it didn't work. (error 22)
I adjusted the screw underneath the head to make it closer to the spindle, tested it, and it didn't work. (error 22)

I've put over 100 bucks into this project between the replacement belt, the FDS unit itself, and tools necessary to work on it.

I am frustrated beyond words.

Please help!
Thanks!

[InsaneDavid]

Sure the disk you're trying to load isn't fucked? Are you 100% certain that the disk you're trying to load works properly? Errors 21 and 22 typically are caused by faulty media, not the drive itself. Attempting to repair / tweak anything without having 100% faith in what you're going to run on it / testing with is just flat out bad engineering. Your drive could be fine but monkeying with something fragile as an FDS when not necessary could cause bigger problems with it.

[311fan311]

Unfortunately I don't know if my discs are working or not. But since i was testing multiple discs, it seemed that something else might be off. And to buy additional discs from ebay to use for testing when my drive was not confirmed to be working before replacing the belt, may not work out so well either. Getting the info that the majority of error 21 and 22 messages come from discs that aren't working helps, i've just heard so many different things from people including "it's almost never the discs when an error comes up".