DriveRDY / Converting PC Floppy Drives

[reassembler]

OK, so in this Amiga I'm repairing the original floppy drive was knackered. In fact, the motor actually emitted smoke when I first plugged it in - which was quite dramatic.

I bought a DriveRDY to save me from butchering drives:
https://retrolemon.co.uk/amiga-adapt...-driverdy.html

I bought a Teac FD-235HG PC Drive.

Unfortunately, I can't get the Amiga to even identify a drive is connected in Amiga Toolkit. DF0: No Track 0 (Drive not present?) I cannot hear the motor spin up if I toggle it.

The drive is correctly getting power.

Questions:
1/ I tried swapping the DS1 jumper to DS0 on the floppy drive. I'm not sure if DriveRDY needs this. Does anyone know? Is there any documentation for the DriveRDY that explains what modifications are still needed?

2/ Strangely, there is no pin 4 connected on this floppy drive. It's missing on the floppy pin header and looks like it came from the factory like that. Looking here, this is the Motor On pin for the Amiga:
https://dfarq.homeip.net/floppy-drive-pinout/

Is this common on PC drives, or am I unlucky?

[reassembler]

Right, I don't even understand this - I've removed the DriveRDY adapter and the disk drive appears to be working fine without it, booting disks etc. (and it's a PC disk drive).

The Read Test from Amiga Toolkit passes. The only complaint from Amiga ToolKit was that the drive was ready too fast, and correctly detected it as a modified PC drive.

The only modifications I made were:
- Moving DS1 jumper to DS0
- I bridged pins 1 and 3 on the disk drive PCB to match the Amiga drive I'd removed. I don't think this was necessary.

I've booted a couple of Amiga Format demo disks I had lying around, a Syndicate demo and some Blitz Basic demo and they boot fine.

What is going on, why is this working without the adapter or any drive PCB modifications. I'm so confused.

[reassembler]

Hmm, the drive isn't clicking which is, I guess, what this adapter is supposed to fix/address.

Instead the adapter simply makes the drive not function at all. So either the adapter must be faulty, or it doesn't work with this particular model of drive. I don't know which it is.

[Boboo_SK]

Need to try more PC Floppy drives. And also check the data cable.

[Elmo Putney]

Have you looked here: http://jope.fi/drives/computolio/

Your exact drive is not listed but other 235** drives all seem to be compatible without mods.

[Elmo Putney]

Is it a fat drive or a thin drive (A500 vs. A1200)?

[TuRRIcaNEd]

Originally Posted by reassembler

Right, I don't even understand this - I've removed the DriveRDY adapter and the disk drive appears to be working fine without it, booting disks etc. (and it's a PC disk drive).

Are they all "normal" AmigaDOS floppies thus far?

I suspect the problems will likely arise when trying to use floppies which bypass the standard routines in favour of custom trackloaders.

Apropos of nothing, my first Saturday job in my teens was working in a local computer shop and one thing I distinctly remember about the Escom A1200s was that they had a PCB plumbed into the floppy drive circuit which the original CBM A1200s didn't need. At the time I was told that the reason for this was that Escom were unable to source floppy drives from the OEMs used by CBM and that hardware hack was necessary to make the PC drives Escom could source work with floppies that used custom trackloaders (and games in particular).

[hooverphonique]

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Are they all "normal" AmigaDOS floppies thus far?I suspect the problems will likely arise when trying to use floppies which bypass the standard routines in favour of custom trackloaders. Apropos of nothing, my first Saturday job in my teens was working in a local computer shop and one thing I distinctly remember about the Escom A1200s was that they had a PCB plumbed into the floppy drive circuit which the original CBM A1200s didn't need. At the time I was told that the reason for this was that Escom were unable to source floppy drives from the OEMs used by CBM and that hardware hack was necessary to make the PC drives Escom could source work with floppies that used custom trackloaders (and games in particular).

This normally relates to the READY (RDY) signal not being wired in an amiga-compatible way.. One of the floppy test sw packages will be able to tell if it gets asserted correctly or not.

[reassembler]

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Are they all "normal" AmigaDOS floppies thus far?

Yes they were - it has problems with anything custom as it turns our as those initial floppies were AmigaDOS based. I'll need to look at the PCB on the drive and see if it can be modified - this is a slightly more modern drive without any physical jumpers. Everything needs to be soldered to modify settings. I will also experiment with other drives.

That being said, I'm disappointed with the DriveRDY adapter. I bought it to avoid the faff of soldering minute surface mount components, bodge wires, cutting traces and worrying about the revision of the PCB on the disk drive in general.

[Boboo_SK]

And do you know the condition of your Amiga, your FDD TEAC drive and also the data cable for FDD?
These are three factors compared to the adapter that the seller sold you as functional and tested.
How about testing other mechanics on a second "functional Amiga"

Doesn't that look suspicious?

[reassembler]

The Teac drive was tested in a PC. It works reading AmigaDOS disks in the Amiga. It passes the read the test in AmigaKit. It's more the fact that with the adapter added the drive does absolutely nothing and isn't even detected.

I've found a guide to the PCB revision here. I'll attach the image from this site for reference:
https://honi.hucki.net/teac.html

I'll also test the adapter with another drive once I pick one up, but right now this is the only one I have access to without dismantling other machines.

[reassembler]

OK, so I followed the guide above and modified the drive pcb itself. Works fine now with every working disk I tested.

No idea on why the adapter didn't work.

[Boboo_SK]

So the DriveRDY adapter is working correctly?

[reassembler]

No. I didn't use it. It was useless unfortunately.