#Floppy Drives
16 messages in this thread
I have a couple of quick questions about Amiga floppy drives.
1: Are the drives internally the same as the 3.5" drives used for IBM's (and
clones).
2: And if they are, is it possible to replace the low density drives with high
density ones.
I have a A500 with a CMD 1010 external drive thats acting up. I would love to
make it a high density drive if possible.
Chris…
Chris,
No, IBM and Amiga drives are different. If you want a HD floppy drive for
your Amiga you'll have to try and order one from a C= distributor. It is a
specially designed drive that slows down its rotation speed when writing
to HD disks. Good luck in finding one, I've been trying now for some six
months or longer.
Christopher
CP: Are the drives internally the same as the 3.5" drives used for IBM's
(and clones).
The "raw" DSDD drive mechanisms are, but the cabling & interface is
different. The most common drive used for the Amiga is the Chinon FZ-357,
and the Chinon FB-357. You do have to be careful, not all DSDD drives are
designed to the same specs. This one reason that some third party drives
starting failing under ADOS2.0 & 3.0, changes in the newer
trackdisk.device(s) caused drives that were at the edge of specs to fall
outside of specs.
CP: And if they are, is it possible to replace the low density drives with
high density ones.
No. The Amiga uses a special "dual-speed" HiD drive. The Chinon FB-357a,
and FZ-357a drives are the Amiga HiD drives.
The Amiga's built-in floppy controller is a little dated. While it can
read MFM, and GCR, in IBM, ST, and (the six) Amiga formats, it can handle
only DSDD standard of ~250Kps of data at 300rpm of the floppy. The IBM
HiD floppies transfer ~512Kps at 300rpm. The Amiga HiD floppy works by
doing ~250Kps at 300rpm, and 250kps at 150prm, which the Amiga can
handle.
Ron.
– ap'ing with AP. (Eagles may fly, but weasels aren't sucked
into jet engines.)
Thanks Ron,
Now, if I were to get ahold of a Amiga HiD drive, what would it take to get it
to work with my 500? Or would it even be worth the effort?
Chris…
There is an project/article by Phillip Combs, in the July 1993 (vol. 8,
no. 7) issue of "Amazing Computing" magazine, that explains what is
needed, and how to install either an internal or external HiD floppy in
both the A500 and A2000.
Ron.
– ap'ing with AP. (Eagles may fly, but weasels aren't sucked
into jet engines.)
Ronald,
Have you tried this HD floppy mod that is in Amazing? I have a used hd
drive on the way (from a 3000) that I plan to install in my 2000, and use
the Amazing article as the guideline. I am a little anxious as to all the
`corrections' I see in the following issue. Although this mod looks
fairly straight forward (biggest prob is moving eject button) I plan to
follw the article to the letter.
…Steve
====>>> Motorola 68030 Inside <<<====
I haven't tried the HiD mod. I don't have a HiD, and getting one will
have to wait until after I get an A1200 RAM expander, and a Hard drive.
Ron.
– ap'ing with AP. (Eagles may fly, but weasels aren't sucked
into jet engines.)
Ron,
actually CBMs own A1010 Amiga drives failed under 2.04 when copying a lot
of files to a disk! They fixed it by Setpatch V38.31 (ADOS 2.1).
Regards, J0RGEN ….from DENMARK
Are you saying the 1010's broke under 2.04 until the release of 2.1?
Richard -> via the Amiga 1000 AutoPilot
Not really broke, but if you would copy several files from your hard disk
to the floppy (e.g. Copy DF1FILES:#? DF1:) then it would corrupt the
floppy disk (block 880 and 881). You would have to copy each file
separately, but copying a large file would also cause the problem.
By the way I have been running 2.04 and 2.1 on my A1000 for a year now
using the Kwikstart II board which allows both the 2.04 ROM and the 1.3
ROM to be installed in the A1000. Only to be recommended (but be careful
when installing it. The legs break off easily).
Regards, J0RGEN ….from DENMARK
J0RGEN –
Out of curiosity — How often do you actually switch back to Wb1.3?
Is it as often as you thought you would or (as I would suspect) very
little?
OnLine since 1982
Roy Pahnke – Casper WY
Roy,
very little, and definitely not as often as I believed, I would, but then
again I don't have many games, and that is where I sometimes have to
switch back.
Regards, J0RGEN ….from DENMARK
I never ran into that problem and I have had a 1010 with 2.04 until 6
months ago when I moved up to 2.1, so I was kind of surprised to hear
that.
I didn't go the Kwikstart route because I wanted the ECS, ROM socket and
I didn't want to start unsoldering that one PAL chip.
Richard -> via the Amiga 1000 AutoPilot
True, some of CBM's own A1010 drives did fail. I, myself, had a third
party drive that stopped working with 2.0, but works well enough with 2.1
& 3.0.
Ron.
– ap'ing with AP. (Eagles may fly, but weasels aren't sucked
into jet engines.)
Yes, both my internal and external A1010 failed.
Regards, J0RGEN ….from DENMARK
The Amiga disks are not the same as IBM disks. Several years ago, people
were creating boards to go in the drives to make them work, but I've not
seen one of those articles in a long time. I think people decided that it
just wasn't worth it.
—Betty