I’ve got a story to talk about, from another 64DD owner, Carl Sammons, about how the disk drive stopped working because of a faulty disk, and how to fix it!
This story was written by Carl Sammons, and I did a bit of editing to make it easier to read. You can read it after the break.
The Story
So someone contacted me on Reddit, asking if I knew about an Error 01, asked to explain the problem a little more. I was told after he tried a game, Mario Artist Paint Studio, that the drive started giving errors on all the games, and the same errors.
Told him that I didn’t know a fix for it sadly, but if he wanted to send his games to me, I would gladly test them to make sure his disks didn’t go bad. A few days later the games arrive in the mail, and I get to testing. Doshin the Giant worked, Mario Artist Polygon Studio worked, then the fun started. Tried Mario Artist Communication Kit, game started, then gave a weird error. So I stuck the disk to the side, and moved on to the next which was Mario Artist Paint Studio.
I pop the disk in, disk starts to spin then suddenly the disk read head slams forward a few times making an awful clicking sound, then the drive stops. On the TV, I was getting the error he was having. So I say okay, that disk is for sure bad, so I go back to Doshin because I know it works, and now that disk is doing the same thing!
I grab one of my own personal disks to try and now it was doing it too. I take the drive and give it a few taps on the top and bottom, maybe something got stuck. All my games are now doing the horrible clicking sound. I reach out to a friend, Shane Battye, about how I should go about fixing this as he is a bit more knowledgeable on the 64DD than I am. He suggested trying to clean the disk read heads. So this is where the fun starts.
Basic 64DD Disassembly + Repair Instructions
There are 4 generic Nintendo screws on the bottom 4 corners, undo them, then you will be left with 4 shock mounts holding the drive together.
They are pretty hard to pull apart since it’s just held with friction, I had to pry on the drive shell hard to get them to pop loose.
After you split the two halves, there are two ribbon cables in the back you have to undo. Release them, then you are left with the bottom half.
4 Philips head screws hold a large metal shield over the drive, undo them and remove the metal shielding covering the drives mechanical bits.
This is as far as I went with the disassembly, because there are cut outs in the remaining metal you can use.
<Editor Note: See the video of the 64DD open alongside the non working drive reaction here: https://luigiblood.tumblr.com/post/189040013392/video-of-the-not-working-64dd-from-carl-simmons>
I took a cotton swab, bent it at a 90 degree angle, soaked the tip in 91% isopropyl alcohol, and using the holes in the metal, weasel it in between the two disk read heads and dab them, and scrub them clean, I spend about a minute on each one.
After that, I placed the ribbon cables back, leaving the drive open to see the inner workings, I hooked a N64 up, and tried a disk to see if it worked. First attempt, it started, then errored out, but did not slam the disk read head forward. Restarted it, and the game started right up! I figured maybe the heads werent fully dry yet. I tested with his Doshin, my games, and all of them worked.
Possible cause of the issue
I took a look at the Mario Artist Paint Studio disk that caused this problem, and there are visible marks on the disk. Normally, the 64DD disks are a very shiny uniform gray with no marks or imperfections. This one has what looked like frost on a windshield on a cold morning all over the disk. Could have been mold, disk deterioration, or maybe something else, I’m not sure, either way the disk has been marked faulty never to be used again.
Reassembling the drive is much easier, simply line everything up, make sure your ribbon cables are snapped into place firmly, and that the drive mounting screws are in place, push everything down gently and it should all go together easily. Turn the drive over, reinsert the screws, and you’re done!
Hopefully if someone in the future runs into this error, this little write up can help you as I was not able to find anything online about this. These machines and disks are getting older, and their time is fading so I’m doing my best to preserve them.
Any questions, please reach out to me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/deeznuts6900) or Instagram @wtf_m8, and I will be happy to help! A big thank you to LuigiBlood for posting this, in the hopes if anyone has an issue they can find it and hopefully be of use.
-Carl Sammons
Tips from LuigiBlood about the 64DD errors:
Basically, if you have Error 01, check the following:
- If the ribbon cables are properly in place, they sometimes go a bit wrong over time, so just pull them back in place.
- Check the mechanism, sometimes it’s possible that the main slider isn’t greased enough, and prevents the drive to work properly.
This was the problem that my drive may have gotten, however I kept trying to play disks and it kinda solved itself.
- Maybe the disk is faulty beyond repair, like the one talked about in the story.
One detail is that when a disk is corrupted and the drive is working, you shouldn’t have Error 01, but Error 23 (Unrecovered Read Error), 24 (No Reference Position Found), or 25 (Track Following Error). The 2x range is about the disk.
Any other error might be a bigger problem.
- If all else fails, follow the instructions above to clean up the heads, and be patient.
If you got Error 44, please get an Expansion Pak.
