Why can't I have a 3.5" drive like everyone else !!!???

[Badstarr]

This is my first post so hello to you all! I have searched this forum but can't find any thing that can help me make some progress.


I am having no end of problems installing a 3.5" drive in my new machine!!!



I have just bought a 464 plus, which has been modified by its previous owner, and I have been working through the night to get the mods up to scratch. So far RAM chip with bent pins, and a few other annoyances but now she's fighting fit apart from it's refusal to accept a 3.5" drive and I've tried loads of drive units from my retro graveyard, from the first Atari ST drive to my last PC Floppy Drive. None of them work all I get is the same Drive A Disk Missing Message! It's driving me crazy!


I last attempted to install a 3.5" drive 10 years ago in my 464 vanilla edition with DD-1 (I think that's right??) Interface. I had the same problems as I'm having with this new machine. I always put it down to bad soldering, yet one day I cracked it and my old 464 could access 3.5" media for all of ten minutes before I shorted something and wiped out the drive interface! Just my luck!


So being older and wiser now I thought I would give it another shot. I have followed the guides on the wiki and other places, I've shorted the 33-34 pins to each other to force a ready signal and nothing but "Drive A Disc Missing". At least two of the drives are identical to the ones I managed to briefly get working years ago (Amiga Atari ST). So I can't understand why I cant get any of them to work! I have tried modifying the SMD resistors on the PC drives as per the wiki guide and still no luck.


I have to point out though that the machine works fine with my CF2 3" drive hooked up but thats no good for transferring from the PC. I have tried hooking both 3 and 3.5 drives up as A and B and still nothing from the 3.5!


There has to be some genius on these forums who can help me crack this 10 year long problem! It seems like everyone else just throws a new drive in their machine and they are up and running!


Sorry for long winded post I'm sort of venting a bit as well as appealing for some help!


Cheers for any help!

[TFM]

For a 464 Plus you will need a FDC, so that means get an DDI-1 and just connect a 3.5" floppy disc drive to it.

You can get both on ebay, or ask here in "search and find" or how ever it is named.

[Carl]

Thanks for the reply TFM/FS! But I'm having the same trouble with my normal 6128, I have tried with about 11 separate drives now and none will recognise that there is a disc inserted. The drive spins up as expected when I CAT or |B it constantly reports disk missing! There is no head activity on the drives either. I have tried an old 1980s atari st drive, an acorn drive an amiga drive and loads of PC drives from 80s 90s and nothing is working.


I want to install a HXC Floppy Emulator soon but before I spring for it I want to know I can install it as I would imagine I would get the same problems!


My Plus machine IS a 6128 Pus, but in 464 Plus clothing with a cassette drive installed. On both machines the 3" floppy works fine!


I don't think a DD-1 is necessary as both machines have an integrated floppy controller and interface. I also tried a dd-1 with my 464 years ago and trashed it by mistake literally after I gained full access to the drive, so in short I know it's possible! Some one must have the answer!

[Gryzor]

Who was it who had released a drive-testing utility? Ah, it was Kev. Try this: http://cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php/topic,1416.msg13821 , although it's intended for 3" drives.

Unfortunately I think that, without knowing what modifications the poor CPC has undergone it'll be difficult for anyone to diagnose... But I have not read about any problems ever connecting an HxC.

Btw, why nor register? Also, please bear in mind that some of these posts will disappear in a couple of days due to roll-back to an older backup, because we're switching servers...

[robcfg]

Hi Carl,


If you are using standard PC 1.44MB 3.5" drives you'll have to change a smd resistor to allow the drive to behave as single sided, as far as I remember.


You can also check this tutorial if you'd like to have the 3.5" drive in place of the 3" drive: http://zonadepruebas.org/deepfb/ordenadores/amstrad/3,5eng.htm

[Gryzor]

Well, he did say he did the resistor modification...

[MaV]

Hi Carl!

If your efforts fail, and you decide on buying a (Once you've bought the) HxC-Floppy-Emu, I suggest reading this thread:
http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?topic=2386.0

Just ask, if there's any further questions, of course.

[Gryzor]

Yeah, but the thing is, before forking out for it he'd like to find out if there's any possibility that it will or not work I guess!

[Bryce]

Two things:

A) A DDI-1 won't work with a standard 3.5" drive without modifying it. The DDI-1 electronics gets its 5V from the FD-1 and not the CPC as other expansions do. A standard 3.5" drive doesn't supply 5V on the correct (any) pins.

B) The idiots at Amstrad reversed the pinout of the connector to the Floppy drive, so you need to connect the cable the other way up on a 3.5" drive, otherwise it won't work (would probably react as described above).

Bryce.

[MaV]

Yeah, but the thing is, before forking out for it he'd like to find out if there's any possibility that it will or not work I guess!

Hehe. True. It seems that my pessimistic tendencies have gotten the better of me.
I'll edit it.

[Bryce]

By the way, regarding my point B) above about the cable needing to be the other way around and the fact that you said you'd read all the online documentation here in the Wiki. The HxC Manual also has some relevant information about connecting a floppy to the CPC, after all, it is essentailly 100% floppy compatible. You can find the user manual here: http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/SDCard_HxC_Floppy_Emulator_User_Manual.pdf (Read the warning at the bottom of page 6 and Note 3 on page 7)

Bryce.

[Jase]

There has to be some genius on these forums who can help me crack this 10 year long problem! It seems like everyone else just throws a new drive in their machine and they are up and running!

Sorry for long winded post I'm sort of venting a bit as well as appealing for some help!

Cheers for any help!

First, not everyone throws a new drive in their machine. I have a small stack of drives that haven't worked, no matter how I mod them.

Anyway, I think it is possible you need to short pin 12 to ground, which makes the drive act as B: As it stands now, the drive will most probably be accessible as A:

[Badstarr]

Yikes THANKS GUYS for all the replies!!! Guess what though! SUCCESS!!!!!!!! I'm not exactly sure why but I needed to ground motor B Enable pin 10 as far as I can remember and the drive whizzed into life!!!! Just wondering if someone wants to add that info to the guides? Just wondering Jase if that's why your stack of drives wont work?


Soooooooo pleased!!! Finally my ambition as a 19 year old all those years ago has been realised!!!! YAY!!! The only slight problem is that the drive thinks its both A and B but no problems so far I just use it on its own. I just ran Doscopy from the 3" drive and swapped it for the 3.5" and formatted in Amsdos!!! Now my cpc has joined the latter 20th Century and in a couple of months I will buy a floppy emu for the 21st Century!


Right so now I need to get Orion Prime transferred to disc, just one last thing will I need a side switch to play it? The documentation says that it handles that its self I think? Any ideas??


Thanks for all the suggestions guys, hope to be hanging around a lot on this forum from now on!


Hehehe my Amiga owning mates wont look so smug now... then again they probably all have ps3s now lol!

[MacDeath]

too long, didn't read all yet (but will)

Seems the PLUS range has some problems with 3"1/2 drives...

I guess you should take an extreme care concerning the model you use... many are actually not really compatibles, perhaps the CPC old range was more open on the variety of compatible models.
But also you will have to mode the connectic or even some settings on the drive itself.

What is the reference/brand/model of the diskdrive you used/tested  ?


Anyway it seems you made it working.


Remember even some 3"1/2 drives can be old and broken...

And many more brands than 3" drives, not all designed ass well as others.


Also you told us you 464PLUS have been moded...
would it be possible to get some pictures and descriptions please?

=What is perhaps best with 464PLUS is that it's still a PLUS motherboard, so in theory it is fully compatible with 6128 provided you manage to add the missing components.
=What sucks with it is that it still lacks said components, and those may not be that easy to find.
=What sucks with all PLUS is that all models are "uncomplete".

Ok the 464PLUS has a lot of missing components, so i guess it helped to sell it cheaper, but concerning the 6128PLUS this is alsmot a crime it didn't feature the Tapedrive port.

Hehehe my Amiga owning mates wont look so smug now... then again they probably all have ps3s now lol!

If they used to have amigas, I suppose they still would be interested or even impressed to see what modern games such as OrionPrime manage to do with such a "humble" setting as a CPC6128.

[rpalmer]

i still have my amigas (A1200 in a tower,  A1200 in original case and an A1000, and yes they all work!!!!).

rpalmer

[Jase]

What is the reference/brand/model of the diskdrive you used/tested  ?
Remember even some 3"1/2 drives can be old and broken...

I find that the Alps DF354H /121G gives good results, plus they come with the advantage of being available new on ebay for not too much. You do need to solder across 33/34 to get a ready signal, or put a "push-to-break" switch across the joints so you can manually fake a "ready/not ready/ready" sequence for CPM etc.

[Gryzor]

Hey Jase,

Really glad it worked Do get the HxC, you'll find it amazing, really!

As for the added details; since you're the one who did it and know exactly what you did, maybe you could edit the wiki articles yourself? It's very easy

[Jase]

Hey Jase,

Really glad it worked Do get the HxC, you'll find it amazing, really!

As for the added details; since you're the one who did it and know exactly what you did, maybe you could edit the wiki articles yourself? It's very easy

I did actually do an article on another website... (http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=5544) but I have since had other ideas, such as the cpm switch. I am going to make a better version of the drive, so perhaps I aught to photograph that and put that in the wiki? I'll try have a go at editing the current one though, with some nice helpful pointers.


I have thought of adding other things to the wiki, such as the 464+ ram upgrade I did recently, the ever-going rebuild of a battered cpc6128 (including rebuild of the plastic fixing posts, internal 3.5" drive, parados install etc) but time is my enemy at the moment...


And if I could get a HxC at a good price, I would... but then I would want more than 1 (Speccy +3, CPC664, CPC6128, 128+, so that makes 4, just for 8 bit toys)... I cant really afford one at the moment, let alone a bunch of em

[Gryzor]

Hello Jase,

I saw you created a user for the wiki. Thanks so much for your willingness to share!

Just a warning, though; as I said elsewhere, this week's edits will probably be lost once we move servers, so please hold off editing for a couple of days... it'd be a shame if your efforts went to /dev/null!

PS why not use the HxC with all your micros? I'mitching to fetch my ST out of the box to use with mine...

[Bryce]

Hi Badstarr,
       the fact that your drive is now acting as A and B would suggest that the bridges on the floppy PCB are possibly set wrong. On the drives PCB there should be two tiny bridges, probably called DS0 and DS1, it sounds like the wrong one is set. These bridges decide whether the drive should react to "Select A" and "Motor A" signals, or to the B signals. Try removing the bridge (possibly on DS1 at the moment) and putting a bridge across DS0, then you shouldn't need to short pin 10 and the drive will only answer to drive A. If the drive is connected externally and you intend it to be drive B, then do exactly the opposite ie: remove DS0 bridge, add DS1 bridge and remove the short you've put on pin 10.

Having Motor B enable permanently shorted means the drive motor is running all the time, which uses lots of current and may damage disks when they are being inserted or removed.

Bryce.

[MaV]

@Jase:

Lotharek also sells HxC's in a black case.
http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=18

That's much cheaper than buying 4 of them.

[Bryce]

@Jase:
     Buy just one, use it externally (make your own case) and build the 4 cables needed. That way you can use it on all your machines.

@MaV: But you can buy it at that price without the case too
http://cgi.ebay.de/NEUHEIT-HxC-SD-Floppy-Emulator-Amstrad-Schneider-/380343874688?pt=Klassische_Computer&hash=item588e42f480

Bryce.

[MaV]

@MaV: But you can buy it at that price without the case too
http://cgi.ebay.de/NEUHEIT-HxC-SD-Floppy-Emulator-Amstrad-Schneider-/380343874688?pt=Klassische_Computer&hash=item588e42f480

Hm, and shipment to Austria for example is only 4,50 via DHL.

* MaV scratches his head.

[Jase]

@Bryce & Mav
Ok, 4 was probably an exaggeration.


As Speccy +3's are cheap, I would ideally want to install one internally and as hidden as possible...
Same with my CPC6128...


I don't suppose I use the 6128+ much these days, and I don't use my 664 at all (too expensive to spill a pint of beer over)


Even so, and I know it is not cheap to build these things, I just can't justify spending €110 on this (albeit excellent) item. Plus, I think it would change how I play games.


I was watching a talk (I think by the guy from The KLF?) who was saying how the i-pod has changed how we listen to music.


Having all his music on one device means he usually listens to the first few minutes of a track, then changes to the next, often not listening to the whole piece of music, let alone album.


I am pretty bad doing this already using 3.5" floppy disks - I play a game for a few moments which reminds me of another game which I have to hunt down, copy to floppy and boot up.


With the HxC, and everything on 1 SD, and no need to copy a game to disk, I would get nowhere in any game! And yes, partly for this reason, I do often play tape games on my 464 rather than use disk! Sad I know... but if I have waited 5/10 mins for it to load, then I am going to play the bloody thing!

[Bryce]

Well the bare unit only cost €79 which is a really great price.

As far as your Gaming behaviour is concerned, that's up to you. I think it's a very good investment.

Bryce.

P.s. If you get fed up looking at that unused Plus, then let me know. I know a really good place to "store" it