A Tale of Two Widgets

[mst3k]

Greetings,
I've got a couple of Lisa 2/10's with a Widget in each.
One Widget works and one doesn't.
They both spin up (the working one needs a bit of help if it's been sitting a while) and the other one does the rhythmic head banging thing like it's listening to heavy metal until it times out. 

I tried the lay the drive sideways, upside down, move it around trick with no luck.

So, I pulled the control boards off the working drive and put them on the non-working drive and...
The non-working drive works (both drives boot into MacWorks with the 'good' control boards).

So, I decided the trouble was in the control boards and swapped the top boards and...
both bottom boards appear to be good and one of the top double boards appears to 'bad'.

The top board with the 341-0289-D ROM is the 'bad' board.

Here's where I get lost.  They have different ROMs and different chips and I'm wondering if the one drive simply has the wrong ROM and got dropped into this Lisa ages ago?  The fact that both of the actual drives work with the 341-0288 piggyback ROM and control boards leaves me hoping it's just the wrong ROMs on the 'bad' top control board for these machines.

NEOWIDEX says that when trying to boot one of the drives with the 'bad' board that the drive is not a Widget and do I want to fake it?, I respond 'Y' and everything freezes until I literally pull the plug.
I don't plan on using these Widgets or leaving them in the machines, but it'd be nice to see them both working.
Any suggestions are appreciated.
Thanks

[mst3k]

And, it just occurred to me that I should swap the ROMS to test that theory...
Sheesh.

[ried]

I'd bet the Z8 with the piggyback ROM is working and the other one isn't. That's lucky, because the Z8 with its piggyback ROM is rather special and enables one to low-level format a widget.

[stepleton]

I think you're thinking of the ProFile; the regular Widget ROM and Z8 have the necessary information and capability for formatting.

[ried]

Oh, that's right! Thank you for reminding me, stepleton. Well, if the Z8 is indeed working, it can also be repurposed for use in a ProFile - with the correct LLF ROM in its socket, of course. Those piggyback Z8s are hard to find, and I did have one go bad.

mst3k, let me know if you need any components. I do have a couple of parts Widgets.

[mst3k]

mst3k, let me know if you need any components. I do have a couple of parts Widgets.

Thanks ried.  Not there yet, but very nice offer.

I swapped ROMS and either set works with either drive, either lower control board, and the 'good' upper control board.*
So, I guess I have a fault somewhere on the 'bad' upper control board.

The physical drive 'behavior' generated from the bad upper control board is the incessant head banging until the mechanism times out.  That behavior is repeated on both drives if used with the 'bad' upper control board.

*(I don't know the nomenclature for the two control boards so, until corrected, upper and lower are all I've got)

[ried]

For me, Widgets are the most vexing of all Lisa hardware. stepleton kindly guided me through diagnosing the Widget on my first Lisa 2/10 a few years ago. I've had four of them by now, and not one of them worked after days and days of fiddling, board swapping, potentiometer adjustment... even opening up the drive in hopes of securing loose graticules.

Horrendously frustrating things, IMHO.