fv1609

I wish you luck getting the nuts off, as underneath the manifold there is very little room to get a spanner over them. These nuts are brass to resist corosion, the trouble is that makes them relatively soft & easily damaged by a spanner. I don't think you'll get a socket over them. The best hope is box spanner which will be just thin enough. A crow foot socket can help on some of them. Whilst you've got the maifolds off would be a good chance to check the gaps of the exhaust tappets. I expect you have 6 new gaskets but the 2 that fit the 'Y' piece are very difficult to find. For this I use the gaskets for a Standard Vangaurd car. The holes are in a slightly different place but they are larger & cause no problem. But they overlap a little & need to be trimmed a little. Using these has never been a problem.

Mark well it took 3.5 hours & I now have 35,000 files to trawl through. So far I have recovered 20 images I had forgotten about. The problem these are all mixed up with silly little images that range from avatars on forums, windows images & various software icons & images. There are a lot of non image files I can't open & not too bothered about. As the drive is partioned between programmes & files, I don't whether all the drive has been recovered or whether it is the programme bit I am poking around in. I'm not sure whether these images I have are hanging around in Thunderird as attachments or whether I am recovering them from My Documents where I try to save stuff. I can think of one batch of pictures that would still only be in Thunderbird so if do/don't find them it will give a clue. I wanted to recover 2 months of emails sent & received. I'll identify the sort of title these type of files would have then do a search. But quite a lot of manual retrieval ahead tonight! But who would have thought at the start of this thread that a PC nitwit with a dead drive could have recovered much of it, maybe all, I don't know yet. Many thanks to all for advice as I have progressed.

I'll scan all the Ambulance stuff I have & then post it up on here but give me a bit of time. But I'll do it. Requests for Ambulance publications often arise. ok?

Mark ok thanks. I think I'll install Thunderbird afresh on the bigger bit of drive & there is a very nice programme that transfers everything over within minimum of brain ache. I have installed the recovery programme from that link. It is split into two seperate programmes one it seems for programmes & the other for files. I got a bit scared in the first programme as I didn't know where to click & what to select. I'm now in the other programme which had more obvious options & as we speak it has recovered over 2,000 files:-):-):-) It has another 2 hours to run before I can see the fruits of my labours. I won't relax until I have seen those files, but it looks promising, many thanks.

Mark, oh no don't worry doing that, its not worth taking up your time. Besides I would have three lots of postage to pay, to you & back to me then back to the ebay seller. I'm sure it is defective given that it won't work on my wife's PC either & yet the PCworld one works with no trouble. The seller has come back & thinks there was a 'collision' in transit. Obviuosly realising it would cost me to pay to return it, they have offered me to pay £2.50 for a complete new one & I can keep the old one. On principle I would like to return it. Looking at the -ve feedbacks most returned goods apparently don't arrive. So I would have to pay for recorded delivery & I know even then they would say they tested it & it was now working. So I think I will weaken & cough up the £2.50 in the hope there is not some generic problem. But some of the leads in the kit cost £5 in the shops. If it works it would be tempting to return the PCworld one & say theirs didn't work. But that is fundamentally dishonest & if people treat traders like this it is just not fair. Having made that decision I see that it comes with software to do instant backups using a button on the front panel. The files drive in IDE is 60 Gb & not had much use. So another back up mechanism seems sensible. Just a quicky. This PC has a partioned drive separating programmes & files. Can I drag & drop say my email programme into the more spacious files part or does it have to live with the OS & other programmes? Many thanks

Ok Mark, well the ebay kit is packed up ready for return. I explained the problem to the vendor & what I had tried.The seller says it was fully tested before it was dispatched, which sounds surprising considering the high turnover of this seller. I was told to re-read the instructions which is rather difficult as the instructions refer to a unit based in a 'bux' & not appropriate to my unit. It is in very bad English & the instructions do not mention XP mainly 'Win9g'. I was advised to go through everything again as they can't see why it no longer works. The trouble is with 45,800 transactions a bad feedback from me will mean nothing yet a retaliatory bad feedback on me with few transactions will have a significant blot on my character. So I'll see what happens. Looking at posts for people with similar format pronblems threw up some hope. In that the folders may not be readable but the individual files may be readable. A number of people had good results with this: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download So I'll see what happens. What I didn't know was whether the ancillary circuitary on the HD was at fault or the discs themselves. My transplant would only stand a chance if it was the former. I realise if there are bad sectors then I've had it. Many thanks

Finn, can they not supply some of the documents copied & posted if you pay up front? Although I have to admit rummaging through documents in a military library is a nice way of passing a day.

Chris you've said FV2631 I think is a typo for FV2361? Although that is 3/4 Ton it's not wide tracked, but what does it say in the Technical Description?

Oh Gawd I can see this going to be like a striptease display of snippets from your AESPs! I've looked through various editions of 0100-A-001-013 from 1994 to 2004 & that octad doesn't appear in any of those. So it must be quite early so I think I'll have to delve into my FAESPs although it's odd my 601 is dated 1998. So I assume Chris this veiled excitement is a reference to a Mk2 somewhere in there? In 601 there is no reference but maybe you know something more:kiss:

Chris, no the only one I have in that octad is 601. Why am I missing something interesting?

Eivind if you join the Fleet Data Society they have large collections of registrations. http://www.fleetdata.co.uk/index.html If you have a particular registration in mind put it up here & I'm sure many people with nearby registrations will help you identify the year.

Mark Bit of progress. Went to Maplin for £25 they had a SAT reader but not IDE. Anyway they couldn't try it but I was assured if it didn't work with my drive return it for a refund. Just happened to walk accross to PCworld & for £25 they have a docking box that can take SAT or IDE drives. So I bought that with the same proviso. With this there were instructions correctly translated into English. It seems the drivers are only if you are running Win98. So both the IDE drives operate in this craddle/box. After a few flashes of the LED on the panel the PC identifies a Mass Storage Device with icon on lower RH corner & on My Computer. Exploring them shows all the data intact & I last used them over 3 years ago. I always thought the system HD had failed & that's why I scrapped the PC. I'm now looking at the case & just wondering whether I could get that to run again. At least I have the XP disc for that, rather than being preinstalled on the HD. That was the good news. The bad news is that the suspect SATA although identified as being there flags up that it "needs formatting." I assume that means it has a serious fault, beyond any retreval or exploration? I think I know the answer to that! So I'm going to look at the discs insides & see which is best suited to retrieve & transplant to one of the working IDE drives! I've not yet opened the Maplin box for SAT drives only, I can't think there will be anything in there that would make it work. Big thumbs down for the ebay one then.

Chris you may well be ok. The pair of triple grouped leads I had, came out of Lucas boxes which were marked as manufactured in the 1980s, I assume for keeping the Pigs running in NI. Although it's true all rubber will go down hill with time, the rubber looked in excellent condition as if they could had been made recently. As a check I tested them for leakage with a 1,000 volt Megger & the insulation was good. Out of curiosity I tested the leakage on the FV1601 & that was the original 1952 stuff & that was still ok, yes lucky I know.

Mark. Ok thanks. Yes I was hoping they could verify that their readers could detect if any of my drives had life to them. Then I would buy it. I would have gone there first if I had known there was one nearby, I know it would be more expensive than ebay, but if I get advice with a product then I don't mind at all. Although they might have a ban on plugging in customer's devices in case they carried something nasty. Alternatively I'll see if there is a returns policy to allow me to take it back if it won't read any of them. I was hoping if at least one drive worked, then I could dissect out the discs & transfer them to the working drive. I wonder if that is worth trying? I have been a radio amateur for 45 years & have worked on small circuit boards & indeed my day job used to be working on small difficult structures in a confined space. But is there compatability between the discs themselves & the reading procedures with all the attached circuitry?

Mark ok thank you, don't worry you're not talkng down to me. Any suggestions are welcome. I went into the BIOS with the suspect HD powered up & connected via USB. This is what I found. The No.2 is a large storage drive permanently plugged into the USB. There were no signs of life from the other two HDs either. When its all running there is no sign of acknowledgement from the PC. No 'plonk' sound to say something has changed no icon on lower RHS & no sign of drive in 'My Computer'. I'm just wondering if it is this plug adaptor system that I have is perhaps defective. It's just odd that all three HDs give no indication. As it happens a Maplin opened last week 10 miles away luckily on my side of the edge of Salisabury. Given that this is a Monday in a store that has only just opened, I am hoping the staff will be keen to help. If they have any adaptors or docking boxes that can detect my drives if they have a running PC, then I'll buy it & send this 'bux' of tricks back to the ebay seller. Many thanks.

Chris I'm pretty sure that I have done that. Just had to remember to get the identity rings fitted on correctly.

David thank you. Well that will be interesteing to see what the BIOS recognises. The only worry is that if I try to boot from the HD under test then nothing will run? Because the OS on that drive doesn't work & it's only the files I'm trying to access. One of the other HDs I'm testing has no OS on it as it was only used for file storage. So would it still boot if I select one of the HDs to test?

Lots of interesting stuff, only £1 at today's carboot. Note that it is designated OU 5296 meaning it is in the restricted classification of Official Use. OU was abandoned in 1942 & reclassified in the new BR series (Books of Reference)

Out of interest that was what was specified in the Commer handbook.

Doug I used to use DOT-3 but its moved onto DOT-4. I have no Servicing Schedules prior to 1973. I included the 'Lockheed Orange' for historical interest & was wondering if anyone knew why this was included in a user handbook & didn't specify a military fluid.

The 1976 Servicing Schedule specifies 0X-8 The 1953 Operation & Maintenance Manual specifies 'Lockhead Orange or Lockheed No.5 Fluid'

Ok Mark thanks for comments. All the USB ports work with other things. I have up to SP3 now. I tried all three drives in my wife's PC but no joy there either. There is that instruction to make sure the drive is set to master. But from what I descerned from earlier comments with the later SATA drives thats not needed. Although I notice the older two drives with long multiway connectors do have small link plugs in the smaller socket. But surely I don't want the drive under test to assume the role as 'master' as presumably the master is the one with the OS? I just want to get at the files.

Or it might even have been Franck Eggelhoffer:

I imagined it would be like this but in a bux. Well on the cardboard bux it came in it says "plug & play" but I'm a bit confused with all the nonsense on the CD quite why that is needed, I suspect by the titles it is for win9g!

Ok thank you both. But plodding on here, the box of tricks has arrived. It does say plug & play. I've plugged & nothing plays. There is a Users Manual (folded piece of paper) but this is not entirely helpful. There is no mention of XP, but it seems to cover win9g if you have that one. I assume the bux is not the carboard bux it came in but is if you have the docking bux with connectors. This kit is a power unit & multiway sockets for the drive & then a lead terminating in a USB plug. There is a mini CD with it with what seems to be drivers for Win98 & another "manual" intended for the use of a bux. Anyway I have two other HDs from an earlier PC. They fit onto other outlets of the multiway plug. I can power them up & sense life in them, but again the PC won't recognise either of them as being there. The manual advises : If you have some misunderstand or question, please contact the local dealers. Well I do have some misunderstand & feel like putting it in its cardboard bux & sending it to a local dealer. But has anyone used these adaptor in a bux or not? Should it be plug & play or is there something that needs to be turned on for recognition or somes ort of driver loaded? I don't understand 'set as master mode' in the first line. Many thanks.