External floppy

[quantum112]

Hi, I've just got my external floppy from eBay. Disks don't boot from it, and I can't see it in Workbench. I can hear the drive ticking. When I insert a disk in Workbench, nothing happens. Anyone have an idea? Maybe open it and check any jumpers? Thanks

[musashi5150]

It could be the little switch inside that detects when a disk is inserted. When a disk is inserted in WB can you still hear the drive clicking?

(A normal 1.3 A500 won't boot from an external drive btw)

[quantum112]

Yep. Drive still clicks, no LED, no Icon in WB at all... just click, click, click...
I tried flipping some switch inside but then it didn't click at all (it's not the OFF switch on the back, some other inside).

Man, eBay is full of sh*t that doesn't work.

[s2325]

If I remember correctly LED is off if disk is inserted. Drive must read something to light up LED.

[quantum112]

The LED never comes on. You know, I'd be willing to bet this has something to do with Vesalia's hackjob on the internal floppy I have. I opened that up once and I think they left solder blops on both the DS0 and DS1 circuits, so maybe the external drive can't even map itself anywhere, wouldn't surprise me at all. I'll open that up and desolder and clean those traces, might just do something.

[Retro1234]

I think the light would come on - Check NDOS or ADOS

I know floppys arnt that popular any more - But it seems hard to get a decent drive that you dont haver to fuck about with and the Postman drops it on the door mat knocks it out of alignment

[quantum112]

Hey, I've hooked up the drive as an internal one and flipped the jumper inside and it works perfectly, I have Lotus 2 running right now... so why doesn't it work as an external drive? (The Vesalia floppy isn't connected now, it could be the problem)

[orange]

if you're using it in 'bigbox' amiga, the jumper might be set wrong on motherboard.

I think the drive should be set as DS0 even if its external, and the additional electronics in the box makes sure to set it as df1, df2 or df3. (maybe)

er, you did check if tiny switch is 'on', right?

[quantum112]

Originally Posted by orange

if you're using it in 'bigbox' amiga, the jumper might be set wrong on motherboard.

I think the drive should be set as DS0 even if its external, and the additional electronics in the box makes sure to set it as df1, df2 or df3. (maybe)

er, you did check if tiny switch is 'on', right?

I have a normal 1.3 A500, if that's what you mean by "bigbox"

While I'm not entirely sure what the small switch on the back of the external drive does (It's on the back of the floppy drive itself, not the casing), it's labeled as DSSW1 and to the right of it says 0. When it's set to 0 (I guess), then it works internally, and ticks when connected as an external. When I put the jumper to the other position, it doesn't work anywhere, or at least that's my test results so far.

Yes, the floppy is set to "on".

BTW, which motherboard jumper are you talking about?

[PowerPie5000]

I am not sure about the jumper but i have had no problems using external drives on both my A500 and A1200.... I just plug it in and it works (Using old Cumana drives).

Have you checked the port on your Amiga for any broken or bent pins - the power pins are obviously fine as the drive clicks/ticks but what about the other pins?

[quantum112]

Originally Posted by PowerPie5000

I am not sure about the jumper but i have had no problems using external drives on both my A500 and A1200.... I just plug it in and it works (Using old Cumana drives).

Have you checked the port on your Amiga for any broken or bent pins - the power pins are obviously fine as the drive clicks/ticks but what about the other pins?

No, the motherboard is like out of the shop. I've no idea what it is, but I'm betting it's (was) the interference from Vesalia's modded floppy.

The drive I bought today is the best damn floppy drive in the world when connected internally. Just formatted and wrote 4 of my HD disks that this hacked PC floppy wouldn't even hear about (because modded PC drives only work as DD drives).

I just hope the internal drive I bought won't give me problems, unless that guy sells hackjobs as well... he'd better not - since he told me these drives were taken straight out of A500's. What people won't do to get their hands on some cash, luckily that PayPal is generous with refunding your money straight off. Better to list an auction as "replacement A500 drive" than "hacked and modded PC floppy drive which may or may not work at all, doesn't work with HD disks and most likely won't even fit in your case". That would be the proper title for most of these auctions.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by quantum112

The drive I bought today is the best damn floppy drive in the world when connected internally. Just formatted and wrote 4 of my HD disks that this hacked PC floppy wouldn't even hear about (because modded PC drives only work as DD drives).

@quantum112,

Are you saying that the external floppy drive you received today contained a high density Amiga floppy drive unit? What type of external floppy drive is it (Cumana, etc.)?

[quantum112]

It's made by Prism Leisure Corporation, in the UK.
The actual drive inside is a Citizen OSDC-*something I can't read due to marker pen*. I don't think it's a HD drive, it still has the 49.99 pounds price tag on it, manual, original box... probably bought 20 years ago. Also, from what I can see, it has only one floppy sensor (read/write one), when viewing it from the front it is on the left side. So I'd say definitely not a HD drive. But it reads, formats, writes both DD and HD floppies like a charm. The modified PC drive had all bad sectors on all of these HD disks, but they work perfectly on this drive.

[prowler]

Thanks for the information, quantum.

I haven't had much luck using HD disks in the internal drives of my A1200s (Chinon FZ-354 in Commodore A1200 and Panasonic JU-257A516P (PC floppy drive?) in Escom A1200).

However, my Cumana external floppy drive is fitted with a Citizen OSDC-29C floppy drive unit. This could well be the same as the one which you have now bought.

I've never tried reading/writing HD floppy disks with this drive. Maybe, when I try it out, I'll be more successful.

[quantum112]

Indeed, now that you mention the model number...That particular one is written on the barcode on the back which I seem to have missed



So it seems to be the same drive. Yes, so far I've had only success with this drive, hope it stays that way for a long time, it'll be the first floppy on this Amiga that actually done it's job. And, compared to modern floppies, it seems really well built, not to mention it has a 2-3x larger PCB..I guess, things were just made better back in those days.

[prowler]

I must admit that the Citizen floppy drive does seem to be the most reliable Amiga floppy drive I have. It will read some DD floppies that the others won't. The Panasonic drive in the Escom machine is the worst in this respect.

The Escom A1200s have modified motherboards which enable PC floppy drives to be used internally instead of Amiga units. For this reason, the Panasonic drive is a PC unit, and that's probably why it's so bad!

[quantum112]

Ahh, it's been a while since I made a purchase worth the money now
Hopefully I can get it working externally and the internal drive that's still in the post turns out just as good. I'm trying to scrounge up some joystick locally for a cheap sum, because I've tried running Lotus 2 and for some reason (I can't remember if this was so) I can't seem to do anything with the keyboard! It won't let me select or drive or anything. If the mouse is in port 2 then I can select with the mouse. I ran WinUAE and set all ports to <none> and the behaviour is the same, yet I remember my friends and me playing on the keyboard. It functions perfectly in Workbench etc., and I can reset ingame with CTRL-A-A so I know it works.