Sudden issues writing to external drives...

[ProdigalAmigan]

Hello!

I have an Amiga 1200 setup with 3x external floppy drives:

DF1: RocTec Lite
DF2: Cumana CAX-354
DF3: Gotek Floppy Emulator in external case

Last week the RocTec Lite started having mechanical issues where it sometimes would not read disks properly on insertion instead just whirring. Then sometimes it would work fairly OK but not always reliable.

Went on eBay and found another Cumana CAX-354 to replace the RocTec Lite. Got this in the mail and installed it tonight for a testrun and this is when the weirdness began.

DF0: can read and write DD floppies just fine (HD floppys if the detection hole is taped over). No problems.

Status for DF1: and DF2: alike is that they seem just fine reading disks (showing all zeroes in green testing in X-Copy) but copying an ADF image to DF1 or DF2 ends up with the disks becoming DF1:/DF2:Unreadable after the write operation is finished and the only way to restore them is to re-format them on the DF0: drive.

Can someone please explain to me what could be wrong? Or am I doing something wrong? I used to be able to write to both DF1: and DF2: no problem when I had the Roctec Lite + Cumana combo. Now with Cumana + Cumana these issues came up.

I am using a Corsair 750 watt PC PSU + ATX to Amiga PSU converter to power the machine and its peripherals so I shouldn't have anything to do with that...

Kindest regards,
//ProdigalAmigan.

[Jope]

Have you tried to isolate the problem, by attempting to connect only one external drive at a time, then writing and verifying a disk with it?

Your roctec probably has a belt problem again.

[ProdigalAmigan]

Originally Posted by Jope

Your roctec probably has a belt problem again.

Hey Jope!

Thanks for your input. I find it weird that it would have a belt issue again after no more than a year since you very kindly replaced the belt for me with a brand new one...

I did some further testing and it goes like this. If I have:

CUMANA + CUMANA (DF1: and DF2: with no DF3: connected) everything is fine for both reading and writing on those external drives. Green zeroes all around.

CUMANA + CUMANA + GOTEK Reading from DF1: and DF2: is fine, but writing produces unreadable disks.

ROCTEC + CUMANA + GOTEK = The Roctec throws 4:s and 5:s and 8:s randomly when reading and writing (when it works). The Cumana drive works perfectly fine (independent of WHICH one of the two drives I have that I test with).

So I am starting to wonder if the culprit now is the Gotek drive. I read somewhere that having done the sound mod on the early goteks can lead to timing errors for the floppys(?) and this is an early one (pre-Flashfloppy firmware/HxC firmware and the new way of doing the soundmod)....

I am going to take out the Gotek from the enclosure and put in the actual floppy drive that it had inside of it from the beginning just to see if that works. If that produces no problems then I know what is causing the issue.

I am also still interested in getting the Roctec drive fixed if it can be done. Can't help but love that thing. But if the drive itself is done for then I guess I'll have to try and source a working internal drive to replace it with.... IF I can be bothered to go to such lengths.....

We'll see.

//ProdigalAmigan

[ProdigalAmigan]

UPDATE:

I bought this Amiga PSU:
https://www.c64psu.com/c64psu/56-174...ug_standard-eu

Got it today and replaced the ATX PSU with it.
Now ... very interestingly...

CUMANA + CUMANA + ROCTEC (DF1+DF2+DF3) now works perfectly reading and writing (Roctec writes perfectly with only 0's as long as it doesn't start whirring but actually recognizes the disk)

.. however if I plug in the Gotek as one of the external drives it starts showing errors in X-Copy .... beginning to suspect that the problem is with the Gotek....

//ProdigalAmigan