StenoRam III+ bad disk drive???

[amelia]

Hi,

I'm having a problem w/my stenoram III+ shutting off in the middle of writing when it tries to write to the disk. It seems to go okay if I leave the disk out and then at the end of the job copy the RAM to the disk.

Does this mean my disk drive is going bad?

Thanks,

Amelia

[Michael Smith]

Hi Amelia,

There are usually three things that could cause the problem you described:

Bad Disk
Bad Disk Drive
Bad Battery

If you are able to write the job to a disk afterwards, and read it into your computer with no trouble, that suggests the disk and disk drive could be working fine. You might have your battery diagnosed.

That is something we can service here if you need. Turnaround is normally just 24-hours. If you would like to send it in to us, fill out a writer repair form on our main webpage www.jmsteno.com.

Hope that helps!

[amelia]

Okay, I do know that my battery has gone bad because it will no longer hold a charge, which hasn't been a problem since I always plug it in at a job anyway.

So, even if it's plugged in, do you still think it's the battery that's causing it?

Is there any way you can give me an idea of how much it would cost if it's either the battery or the disk drive?

Thank you so much for your quick reply!

[amelia]

Oh, and I forgot to ask you one other thing...... could simply a bad disk actually make it shut off like it did? Because I just remembered, after I turned it back on and started writing, it did flash something like "Error: Insert new disk pls"

After playing with it last night, it seems to be working okay. I guess I'm just nervous because it doesn't seem like just a bad disk would make the machine actually turn off...... but you're the expert so I'll wait for your response

Thanks again!

[amelia]

Ok... I know I'm being a pest, but I have a job this afternoon and I'm very nervous to write on this machine.

After playing around w/it this morning, I don't think it could be a bad disk. I put a different disk in this morning, it formatted fine, then I went to write on it, it shut off.... turned it back on, went to write on it, it shut off...... turned it back on, waited for a few seconds until it checked the disk, it wrote fine.

Everything seems to come off the disk fine when I put it on my computer. So, I think I asked this before, but this is now my main questions..... could a bad battery shut the machine off even though it's plugged in? If I leave the disk out while I write and copy the RAM to disk at the end of the job, do you think I'll be okay?

Thanks AGAIN!!!!

[Michael Smith]

Hi Amelia,

Even though you plug your machine in, a bad battery can still cause it to shut off. The reason for this is when your machine gets power from the wall, that power immedialy goes through the batteries first, and then to the machine. So if a battery cell is bad, or going bad, it could stop the flow of power to the machine.

Reason it could be related to the disk or disk drive is because the disk drive is one of the most power hungry sources from a writer. When actually writing to a floppy disk, it draws more power then normal. If only a certain amount of power is making it through your batteries, and you use that power to write to a disk, then the machine could shut off since it isn't getting that full charge.

Just a side note. A battery that does not hold a charge does not necessarily mean it's bad. It simply has hit the end of it's lifetime. When a battery actually goes bad, it normally stops the device from turning on (this is true in notebooks as well).

I'll have prices for you tomorrow. Writer techs are gone for the day.

[Michael Smith]

Prices are as follows:

Floppy Drive Repair: $79 (If Repairable)

New Battery: $49.50 Installed

If you do send your writer in for service, I would recommend you let them diagnose the problem as opposed to specifying between one of these services.