Fried Gotek? What can I do?

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by ransom1122

Awesome news Akira. I think the Pandora box might be the gotek not the amiga.

Now hopefully we can figure out the issue wether sharing a selector.adf between Amigas actually work without reselecting each game again.

You would almost certainly need to image the flash drive to do that.

I have found that re-copying an exiting adf sometimes causes problems.

[ransom1122]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

You would almost certainly need to image the flash drive to do that.

I have found that re-copying an exiting adf sometimes causes problems.

What could possible cause a carbon copy of a usb stick for a gotek not to work with its pre configured slots?

Let's not get too far ahead anyway, I think Akira is sorting this issue out anyway.

Another quick way to test is just put 1 game on usb stick in slot 001, save. Share that image with one game and see if it works on other peoples Amiga with Goteks.

[Sinphaltimus]

Originally Posted by ransom1122

What could possible cause a carbon copy of a usb stick for a gotek not to work with its pre configured slots?

Let's not get too far ahead anyway, I think Akira is sorting this issue out anyway.

Another quick way to test is just put 1 game on usb stick in slot 001, save. Share that image with one game and see if it works on other peoples Amiga with Goteks.

I think what alpine9000 meant was.

Don't start with a blank ready to use USB stick, copy a selektor adf that's already configured with adfs on another usb stick and then copy over completely different adfs. Like duplicating a USB stick and then overwriting the existing adfs with differently named one.

I ran into that issue myself and it was a pain, I needed to reset by holding both buttons (EDIT: and replacing selektor with a default blank config on the smaller usb). I had 2 USB sticks. One big, one small. For the big I wanted as much as I could fit on the cortex slots. The smaller was just going to hold Workbench and gvp utilities. So I formatted the smaller usb, copied all the adfs i needed then copied selektor from the larger already configured usb stick to the smaller one and I had problems. Was nervous for a bit but took all of 15 minutes to correct.

[ransom1122]

Originally Posted by Akira

If you have Kickstart 1.3 you cannot run Workbench 3.1, you need to rn Workbench 1.3

In any case, thanks for what you told me so far, it might be that I am just being extremely unlucky with USB sticks, I will test some more today, because I cannot find anything wrong with the Gotek so far and it's acting in the same way you describe, only that when I insert a stick, it doesn't flash the green light again (I can see a VERY DIM flash constantly on it when there's no USB though, I guess this is normal and the Gotek just checking if you inserted a new USB?)

If you manage to se what it shows on WB with no USB attached that would be most helpful, if you can't, don' t worry!

When using Workbench v1.3 rev 34.21 (1988)(Commodore)(A500-A2000)(NO)(Disk 1 of 2)(Workbench).adf it shows the Wrokbench1.3 Icon with slot "001" active.



If I remove the USB stick while in Workbench mode, It still shows the Workbench1.3 Icon. with slot showing "---" If I Click the Workbench icon at this time it says, Please replace volume Workbench1.3 in and drive. This can be fixed on the fly, by inserting the USB stick, it automatically goes into slot "001" I click retry, and it Workbench continues to work.

Hope this helps

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by Sinphaltimus

I think what alpine9000 meant was.

Don't start with a blank ready to use USB stick, copy a selektor adf that's already configured with adfs on another usb stick and then copy over completely different adfs. Like duplicating a USB stick and then overwriting the existing adfs with differently named one.

I ran into that issue myself and it was a pain, I needed to reset by holding both buttons (EDIT: and replacing selektor with a default blank config on the smaller usb). I had 2 USB sticks. One big, one small. For the big I wanted as much as I could fit on the cortex slots. The smaller was just going to hold Workbench and gvp utilities. So I formatted the smaller usb, copied all the adfs i needed then copied selektor from the larger already configured usb stick to the smaller one and I had problems. Was nervous for a bit but took all of 15 minutes to correct.

I think the selector might link directly to the FAT structures, rather than using the filenames etc.

So if you copy the files in a different order than the person that created the original selector, or any other factor that changes the way the files are laid out on the USB then the selector can fail.

If you image the whole stick, I can't see it causing problems.

[ransom1122]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

If you image the whole stick, I can't see it causing problems.

The question was raised as Akira shared his USB image which wouldn't work on my Gotek unless I manually re select each ADF into each of the 999 slots again.

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by ransom1122

The question was raised as Akira shared his USB image which wouldn't work on my Gotek unless I manually re select each ADF into each of the 999 slots again.

Ah sorry, I missed that. That is weird.

[ransom1122]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

Ah sorry, I missed that. That is weird.

No worries

It was on a different thread though;

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=87326

If you have the time and able to test it on your gotek, please do so.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

I think the selector might link directly to the FAT structures, rather than using the filenames etc.

So if you copy the files in a different order than the person that created the original selector, or any other factor that changes the way the files are laid out on the USB then the selector can fail.

If you image the whole stick, I can't see it causing problems.

That must be it, I thought the same too! Because I also think, if you change the disks around somehow, like modifying them in any way, the selector stops working. I would have to test this though.

I did not share an image of my USB though, ransom, you are confused. What I shared is the selector disk image. Different things.

I did it this way so people with differently sized USB sticks could still use it easily, or selectively copy stuff over without having to copy everything if they had a smaller stick. I would really like to stick to not using a disk image of the USB stick, but I am afraid if what alpine says is what is happening (and I have a feeling it is), there's no fixing it, because the firmware or Selector.adf aren't being worked on any more.

I wonder though, how the HxC firmware works in this regard, and how the disk image to select it uses is constructed. If it refers to filenames, then sharing would work perfectly.

[ransom1122]

To make things clear if I create a playlist of some games on my usb stick for my gotek. That usb stick cant work pre configured on another amiga with a gotek? You must Re configure each game, is that right?

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by ransom1122

To make things clear if I create a playlist of some games on my usb stick for my gotek. That usb stick cant work pre configured on another amiga with a gotek? You must Re configure each game, is that right?

That is probably wrong. As long as you use the same USB stick, it should be fine.
The problem seems to be transferring a SELECTOR.ADF from one stick to another. But I still have to test this further. This is all guesswork because we don't know how this ADF is working , wish Cortex was open source ;(

But we went off-topic, returning that conversation to my compilation thread.

[Sinphaltimus]

Great follow through. I think we've all experienced the shared selector issue and now it's clear. So possible that Akiras other usb drives are fine.

[fordav1]

since the blowing up issue was because 12V came into the 5V pin on the Gotek power connector, for a very simple protection, you could add some kind of voltage regulator to the 5V input. Cut the trace leading to the electronics and between the power input connector and main voltage trace add in maybe something like a LM7805? There may be more elegant ways, perhaps some kind of current limiter or voltage limiter IC that's in a small transistor type package?
The other thing you could do is simply remove the cheap crappy old motherboard floppy power connector pins and fit in a new proper type connector with the tab to stop it being plugged in backwards. They are available on ebay pretty cheap. I have changed that connector on all my Rev 5 motherboards to avoid that exact problem ;-)

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Akira

I wonder though, how the HxC firmware works in this regard, and how the disk image to select it uses is constructed. If it refers to filenames, then sharing would work perfectly.

I think it refers to a specific offset/sector which is why his new tool has the new fixslots/populateslots/etc functions. I imagine the Cortex also saves a specific offset for each individual ADF, so simply copying files back and forth will not work until you recalculate all those offsets so they are correct again. The selector.adf can do that but the firmware probably doesn't have code to interpret the file system table.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by demolition

I think it refers to a specific offset/sector which is why his new tool has the new fixslots/populateslots/etc functions. I imagine the Cortex also saves a specific offset for each individual ADF, so simply copying files back and forth will not work until you recalculate all those offsets so they are correct again. The selector.adf can do that but the firmware probably doesn't have code to interpret the file system table.

Yeah, I get it now, and I am waiting for FlashFloppy to support this not happening anymore! But for now with the wnew configurator, it's OK, we can share playlists.