Looking for the Blitzcopy Software, I got the Hardware already...

[sean_sk]

Hi all,

My sincere apologies for resurrecting an 8 year old thread.
I recently acquired a Power Computing PC880B external floppy drive. The drive came with a manual and a Blitz 1.5 disk. The drive had a Sony MP-F17W-22 that wasn't reading disks, so I cleaned it, aligned the heads and is good as new.
Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with these drives and so just wanted to ask a couple of question:

1. The manual states that this drive is supposed to have a switch at the back to change between "Normal" and "Blitz" function. I have provided a photo of the circuit board of my PC880B and, as you can see, the circuit board never had a Blitz switch mounted. Does that mean the Blitz function is built into the circuit board and functions automatically when using the Blitz software or does it require a separate dongle?

2. The Sony drive appears to be a HD floppy drive since it has a HD detection sensor, but it's my understanding from reading this thread that it won't read HD disks. That's fair enough as I don't need that function. But in order for it to read HD disks formatted at 880kb I need to tape up the HD hole on the disk, whereas I don't need to do that when using those same disks with the internal drives in both my A1200 and A600. Is there a way to bypass the HD sensor in the PC880B drive?

3. 8 posts before this one, Retrodave mentioned that he was able to install a PC floppy drive by jumpering pins 34 and 2 but unfortunately I didn't find the instructions all that clear. Did someone have a diagram or picture showing what he was talking about. This option will be quite handy in case the Sony drive stops working and I need to install one of my spares (Once again, I guess I would have the same HD sensoring issue as mentioned in question 2).

Thanks for you time guys.

[Retroplay]

Here's a couple of pics of my PC880B, it has two switches on the back.
The drive inside is a Sony MPF110-04

[sean_sk]

Thanks for the pics.

As you can see in my picture, mine is quite a bit different to yours and doesn't have the switches at the back (mine is an issue 2). That's why I'm asking whether Blitz mode is built into mine and automatically activates when using the Blitz copy software or whether I will only have that function using a dongle (which was never supplied with mine).

Also when using high density disks (but still formatting them at 880kb) with your drive do you have to tape up the HD hole on your disks for them to work? I have to do this with my drive and am wondering if there is a workaround that allows me to not have to do that.

Thanks again.

[Retroplay]

No, I never had to tape up the disks.
Your drive probably has a HD detector switch on the opposite side of the floppy detector.
You could open up the drive and remove it or do something to make sure it's always pressed down, but if it were me I'd just stick to using tape on the disks.