Here's how to convert a Chinon FZ-357 drive from PC to Amiga :)
 

Ok guys & gals, first an apology from me for telling shit for some time now:
I always thought converting a Chinon FZ-357 drive from PC to Amiga was just a job of playing with the jumpers on the back of the drive. This worked fine for the drive I had, so I didn't notice that my drive in fact had already been converted !
But now I got another FZ-357 drive and was very surprised that it didn't work on an A-500 after I set the jumpers exactly like on my FZ-357 ?!? So, I disassembled both and discovered that it is also necessary to close one jumper ! Did this to the new drive, and now it works perfectly in an Amiga like the other one I had before :)

Ok, here is how to do it:

First, set the jumpers on the back:
You have to close DS0, MM, RDY and TTL/C-MOS
So there is one horizontal jumper in the lower row between pins 2 & 3, and 3 horizontal jumpers between upper and lower row on positions 4, 6 and 7.

Ok, this was the easy part, now you have to disasemble the drive:

First, take off the top cover of the drive by lifting it from the side of the drive. Then carefully pull off the front cover ( if there is one )
Now turn the drive upside down and unscrew 2 screws which fix the drive to the lower part of the case. After this, bend the lower case a little bit to the outside and remove the big spring which goes across the drive from left to right.

Now, very carefully take the drive out of the lower case. Take care not to loose the upper part of the drive !! Hold it down with one finger while removing the drive from it's case !
Once you have done this, turn the drive upside down and have a look on the board. About in the middle, there are 2 square dots marked with 'J2'.
Now, what you have to do is apply a solder blop to close this jumper. Be very careful the blop isn't too big because otherwise you will close some contacts you wouldn't want to be closed ;)

Now, that's all :)
Build the drive back together ( fiddling the disk slot into the right place can take some time ;) ), hook it up to your Amiga like a Amiga drive and it will work 100% with all disks ! This modified drive will also work with NDOS disks and such that require a correct 'ready-signal'.

Now, rush to your local used PC dealer and grab all FZ-357 drives you can get for cheap. They might well become useful one day :)

Good info there Overdoc and I like your solder blop technique there :lol

Yep, me too! From now on I'm replacing all my sloder blobs with blops, they're much nicer ;)

Hey, I must have caused something funny by my b-p error !
But since English is not my mother language as everyone can see ;), what does 'blop' mean then ? I looked it up in a dictionary but didn't find anything ?!?

You didn't find anything because it doesn't exist! It is an Overdocian word...;)

hehe
this would have helped me when i tried to plug my fz357 in my a2000 ! :)

i knew i wasn't crazy when the drive didn't work though i jumpered it correctly ;)

Sorry for sounding ignorant (I am a software hacker not hardware!) but what exactly is so special about this drive? Is it a HD floppy drive or something? Are they being thrown out on lots of PC's etc?

You just neglected to BLOP it :lol

The special thing is that this type of drive can be found rather easily in old PCs, but can be modified for use in an Amiga like I described. This can be very helpful becuase Amiga drives are getting hard to get, and if you do find one at some dealer then it normally costs at least 30 Euro/$ !
The drive is an HD drive, but on the Amiga you can only use it as a standard 880k drive.
I have also seen some of these being built into A-2000 desktops from factory :) That's why I thought it cannot be much of a problem converting them from PC to Amiga :)

Because cheap-ass Commodore decided to have a half speed HD floppy which cost twice as much as upgrading the FDD controller!

DOH!

If I ever get the chance I'm going to skin them and dip them in salt and vinegar..... :mad

That was done by the bankruptcy courts and creditors already :lol

Yea but they weren't nasty enough on a personal level with the :kill (!"£$%^&*&^%$£"!) :kill bean counters who fcuked it up because they knew nothing about computers, or the Amiga, or what made it good.

10,000 years being roasted over hot coals while being basted with concentrated battery acid would be far too nice a fate for these scum.

I can't find the words to describe just how much I loath and detest them and what they did.

OK Syko, tell us how you really feel :lol

Ok then, { THIS POST HAS BEEN CENSORED ON THE GROUNDS OF TASTE AND DECENCY }'s! Is what I really feel.

:laughing

Yes, it's quite easy to be found ( i've found it to the place where old cars are "stored", dunno both the english and the italian term, only the local one: rùtamàt ).

[ look at the picture, the first i think comes from an amiga, the second it's the 357 )

Since the original floppy still works, i would like to know if it's possible [ and how in the case ] to build a cable to connect one of them to the external drive port.

Isn't the jumper block to the right of the data cable connector the one you need to properly jumper to get it working as a DS/DD drive???

Yes, i think it's the right one. But i have also to modify the internal jumper, and the drive on the left i think comes from an amiga, so it should work without being modified.

The left drive ( FB-354 ) is an Amiga drive and you don't have to modify anything.
The other one is the one you have to modify like I described above.

If you want to use it as internal drive it nees jumper DS0 set, and if you want to use it in an external drive case then jumper it as DS1.

It should be possible to build a cable and hook the drive up as external ( maybe with an aditional TTL chip ), but believe me, it wouldn't be worth the effort because both connectors and the cable alone will cost you more than a cheap used external drive. Maybe even here someone has one for sale ?
Better keep the FZ-357 drive as a spare if one of your Amiga drives should fail one time ? It is always good to have spare ones !

Ok. Thank you for the info.