Famicom disk System Error 27

[yummysmokedham]

I recently purchased a famicom disk system and the game Doki Doki Panic. Doki Doki Panic is the only game I have currently. Sometimes the game works fine, then other times I get an error 27 when the system boots from disk, or even when it tries to load between levels. Has anyone had any experiance with this error? I am just curious if it is an error related to the disk or the system, since I currently do not have any more disks to try out on it. Any suggestions would be greatly appricated!

[y-bot]

This page has info on what the errors mean:

http://nesworld.parodius.com/famidisk.htm

This page tells you how to change the belt:

http://jfgoods.net/disksystem.html

good luck!

y-bot

[rbudrick]

...tried posting that first link, but the board was erroring out for the last 20 min. Beat me to it. :-)

For those that don't want to click the link and scroll way down, here:

DRIVE AND DISK ERRORS

The most common problem with Famicom Disk System, is a drive belt inside the drive. Over the years the belt will eventually break. Fortunately drive belts aren't as impossible to find these days as they were just a few years ago. A quick search on ebay and you should be able to find a replacement. The belt in my Disk System has been there since it was bought back in the 80's and it is still going at it. A complete guide to changing the belt can be found here.

Another thing is the damn Disk errors. Below is a complete list of error messages. All of them are numbered on the screen with no really great aditional information, hopefully this will help you. Error 1, 2 and 7 should be easy to figure out, the rest might be because of a faulty disk, though you might want to try it on another disk system before throwing it away or whatever.

ERROR 01 Disk not correctly inserted. (No Disk Card)
ERROR 02 Battery error. Check power adaptor or batteries.
ERROR 03 Broken prong on disk card.
ERROR 04 Wrong gamemaker ID.
ERROR 05 Wrong game name.
ERROR 06 Wrong version name.
ERROR 07 A, B side error (eject disk, turn and insert disk again).
ERROR 08 Disk #1 wrong.
ERROR 09 Disk #2 wrong.
ERROR 10 Disk #3 wrong.
ERROR 20 screen data differs.
ERROR 21 Disk header block(*NINTENDO-HVC*) part is wrong.
ERROR 22 Disk header block reecognition #$01 isn't read and cant be ignored.
ERROR 23 File recognition block #$02 can't read for several reasons and cant be ignored.
ERROR 24 File header block recognition #$03 can't read and cant be ignored.
ERROR 25 File data block recognition #$04 can't read and cant be ignored.
ERROR 26 Can't save properly to disk card.
ERROR 27 Block end mark seen and ends prematurely.
ERROR 28 The disk unit and the same period can't take it.
ERROR 29 The disk unit and the same period can't take it.
ERROR 30 Disk card too full to save.
ERROR 31 Data number of a disk card doesn't match up.

Some of those are rather ambiguous. I saw more in-depth explanations for them once...can't find it now, but some were a bit technical in nature, but made sense if you were familiar with FDS formatting. But basically, the cut and paste above is taken from the FDS documentation and translated, iirc.

-Rob

[yummysmokedham]

I do not think it is related to the belt cause sometimes it will work, and sometimes not. I would assume maybe dirty heads or maybe a bad sector on the disk. Anyone else wanna way in on my guess?

[rbudrick]

Chances are, the belt is on its way out...it's simply inevitable. I would clean the head, and when the drive just absolutely won't load anymore, get it repaired. Also, there's a couple of places you must calibrate the drive every now and then that may have to be adjusted too. Some disks are just tougher than others for it to load when the drive ages. This is especially true for non-first party disks (pirates). Nintendo's disks, without a doubt were of the best quality, durability, and consistency. Of course, disks age too and sometimes need to be re-written to remagnetize the bits.

-Rob

[PingvinBlueJeans]

I do not think it is related to the belt cause sometimes it will work, and sometimes not. I would assume maybe dirty heads or maybe a bad sector on the disk. Anyone else wanna way in on my guess?

I'd like to know myself. I also have the Disk System and my copy of Doki Doki Panic has the same problem (ERR. 27), except that mine won't work/load at all and never did. I get the error message as soon as I boot up the system. Unlike you, however, I do have about ten other disks (all are official Nintendo, not pirate) and they all work fine except that one. I haven't bought a replacement to try yet, so I don't know if the problem is the disk or the system. :/

[yummysmokedham]

Do you use a Famicom with the FDS or do you have it jimmy rigged to a NES?

[PingvinBlueJeans]

No, I have original set-up (Japanese Famicom & FDS). I know that ERR. 27 is a common problem with Famicom Disks and I always assumed that it meant that the disk was bad, but I haven't been able to get a definitive answer if it is fixable or not. I'm going to ask around and I'll (try to) get back to you with an answer, because I want to get mine fixed now that you brought this up.

[rbudrick]

Interesting...DDP seems to commonly give error 27s. Mine does it too, lol. I may have to recalibrate my drive...it may be a bit off. I'm not sure if it's possible, but I think some programs are more sensitive to precision tuned FDSs than others programs. I say this because my DDP didn't work for a while, and I got my drive recalibrated and then it worked again (or maybe that was when I replaced my belt, crap, I don't remember).

You could always reprogram the disk via FDSLoadr. You'll need to make a cable and make sure your drive is a writeable one...either a 7201 chip drive or a 3206 chip drive modded. If after a successful rewrite using the dokidoki.fds file it doesn't work, then the disk is damaged or the drive needs to be calibrated. OR, write it to another disk that you know works. You may be able to narrow down if the disk is damaged, or the drive needs to be calibrated...or if my theory that some programs are more sensitive is correct or not.

There's really only two things that ever go wrong with FDS drives, and they go wrong quite a lot: Bad belts, decalibrated drives. Other than that, you have aging and variable quality disks. Basically, Nintendo's disks were the only truly consistent and high-quality disks, but the third part disks did the job.

So, it's really just a matter of how ar you'll go to try to narrow it down. Those are really your only options: rewrite the disk or send it out to get fixed. I'd try the first before the second because you might not need the second.

-Rob

[PingvinBlueJeans]

How exactly can I recalibrate my drive? Maybe I should try that?

As far as reprogramming the disk...that sounds like it's over my head. It's probably easier to just replace the faulty disk. Although, speaking of rewriting disks, in addition to the non-working DDP, I have a factory copy of Famicom Grand Prix: F1 Race that for some reason has the FGP II: 3D Hot Rally game on it instead (I assume the person took it to a Disk Writer kiosk and copied over the original game). I would like to correct that as well, if possible. :/

[yummysmokedham]

I ran across a webpage a while back while searching for info on this error 27 that talked about a guy that was looking at creating a microcontroller to interface with the FDS so one could copy data onto the FDS disks, anyone know anything about that?

[rbudrick]

How exactly can I recalibrate my drive? Maybe I should try that?

As far as reprogramming the disk...that sounds like it's over my head. It's probably easier to just replace the faulty disk. Although, speaking of rewriting disks, in addition to the non-working DDP, I have a factory copy of Famicom Grand Prix: F1 Race that for some reason has the FGP II: 3D Hot Rally game on it instead (I assume the person took it to a Disk Writer kiosk and copied over the original game). I would like to correct that as well, if possible.

It's tricky and takes a lot of patience. There's a couple of screws you turn and adjustments you make. There's a walk throughs for it, but I've only seen one that was any good. There's also a couple of very rare Hacker International disks that helped facilitatethis. Unfortunately, my only copy doesn't work.. I've gotta get another copy of that.

I do remember hearing about that microcontroller thingy. I think Tomy from Tototek was making it, but he sorta foprgot about it for a while. I think he's only gonna continue it if people bug him about it. go to tototek.com/phpbb2/index.php and make a post in the copiers thread. This means you, people!

Seriously, he was making realy good headway with it and dropped it a year or so ago. I bug him about it every six months or so, but nada.

As for being in over your head with the fdsloadr cable, it's not too hard. I can even point you to some docs I translated that can show you how to build a pretty simple circuit to defeat the lockout protection in your fds drive (if present). If you can solder, you can make these.

-Rob

[rbudrick]

Last night I dumped some rare undumped FDS disks for Skrybe, and I realized something. See, I checked my Doki Doki Panc and my SMB2j disks, which haven't been working; I wanted to see if I could dump them. I forgot that FDSLoadr actually tells you when a block of the memory is bad. As the status bar for each side loads up in little blocks (it kind of looks like the energy meter in Castlevania 1) each block will just turn red if it dumps correctly and checks out. Each block that is corrupt will have an X or sometimes some other weird random character.

Sometimes when you get those little Xs in the dump, you just hit the space bar to dump that side again to see if it grabs a good dump that time. Lots of times it works...it'll dump it perfectly on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th try, depending on the degradation level of the disk. I just try it a few times to see if it dumps it right. If all blocks are red, you're all set. Now, on my SMB2j and Doki Doki Panic disks, there were blocks that were Xed out no matter how many times I tried to dump them. The disks are shot, and the only thing that can save them is to be rewritten.

So, if you can build a cable and can run win 98 (or any OS that does a true DOS mode), you can check the integrity of any disk to see if your disk is truly corrupt.

-Rob

[yummysmokedham]

This cable and software you speak of, can you provide a link on how to make the cable and how to use the software?

[rbudrick]

Sure, here you go:

http://nesdev.parodius.com/fdsloadr.zip

For disk to disk copying (a cable goes between two disk drives), and for info on how to defeat the lockout in some (most) fds drives, which is useful for FDSLoadr and disk-disk copying, look here for my translated docs. Acrobat Reader needed:

http://simplynes.emucamp.com/copytool.html

The big 56MB one is definitely the best. Download it in 3 parts and Acrobat will combine them.

There's a word doc there too for the Japanese version.

It was pure hell (and fun, lol) to make these docs. It took me about a year and probably $1500 in funds doing the reasearch and aquiring all the necessary materials to make these, so enjoy, god dammit! If someone wants to make and donate to me a lockout mod board, I won't say no.

If you have any questions on them, ask away. If someone wants to seriously make these cables I'll offer whatever assistance, advice, and encouragement I can.

Also, if you have rare FDS disks (say, undumped ones, for instance) and just don't wanna bother with making these, I can dump them for you now that I finally have a good dumping unit (I just switch my XP hard drive out for a Win 98 one I made).
-Rob

[rbudrick]

Oh, I thought of one more thing that causes error 27. If the little felt thingy that touches the disk is all frayed, it can happen.

Oh, and this might help (probably not, if you don't have the Copy Master disk):

members.lycos.co.uk/tomyweb/repair.htm

Try this too:

http://jfgoods.net/disksystem.html

This guy sells FDS belts, btw.

-Rob

[PingvinBlueJeans]

Oh, I thought of one more thing that causes error 27. If the little felt thingy that touches the disk is all frayed, it can happen...

Try this too:
http://jfgoods.net/disksystem.html

Thank you for the help, Rob. As far as checking/rewriting the disks, it seems to be a lot of work for just a few disks. Have you actually resurrected any of the ERR. 27 disks to working condition yet? Can I send you disks to be rewrittten?

I opened up the Disk System and the felt thing seems to be in good condition. I'm not so sure about the belt, I didn't open up the drive to check it...maybe I'll try that, but most of the disks seem to work, so I don't know if the belt is the problem. I guess the belt replacement/recalibration on that webpage is worth a try, but are you sure that jfgoods guy knows what he is doing? He has cannabis wallpaper on his page...

[rbudrick]

Thank you for the help, Rob. As far as checking/rewriting the disks, it seems to be a lot of work for just a few disks. Have you actually resurrected any of the ERR. 27 disks to working condition yet? Can I send you disks to be rewrittten?

I opened up the Disk System and the felt thing seems to be in good condition. I'm not so sure about the belt, I didn't open up the drive to check it...maybe I'll try that, but most of the disks seem to work, so I don't know if the belt is the problem. I guess the belt replacement/recalibration on that webpage is worth a try, but are you sure that jfgoods guy knows what he is doing? He has cannabis wallpaper on his page...

I would, but my drive is not a writeable one. I'd have to add a mod board to it or find an older version of the drive with no write protection. See the doc I translated here:

http://simplynes.emucamp.com/copytool.html

It tells you all you need to know about modding a FDS unit that needs modding for write ability. It also shows you how to make a disk dubbing cable.

I've heard the guy is reliable, even if he is a pothead, lol, jk. BTW, if you want to search for your own belts, I did some measuring:

Flat Ribbon Style, 2mm wide (approx .080 inch), but fds MAY take 3mm (.120 inch) or 4mm (.160 inch) wide also. It is just slightly less than 1mm thick. Inside diameter is 9.125 inches, but I theorize that a 9 inch belt may also be just fine. I hope to hear if anyone gets a chance to experiment with belts of those two sizes. Please let me know if you do, and let me know if you manage to find belts of these dimensions anywhere.

-Rob

[PingvinBlueJeans]

I see...oh well. I will just have to try the belt change & recalibration. That other stuff is too much of a project for me right now. Perhaps on a long weekend... Thanks for the help.

[WSUCougars]

I'll vouch for the jfgoods FDS fix. I used that same page about a month ago to bring my drive back from the dead: belt replacement, drive recalibration, etc. Works like new. Changing the belt was the difficult part - recalibrating the drive was a cinch. Just be sure you have a VERY small L-end wrench handy!