Best 3" drive replacement solution

[Salvo B]

In first place I apologize if I'm making a new post on this, since I guess it's an already covered topic, but so far, any of the replies I found seems to not completely satisfy my questions, maybe I was just too lazy for do a deeper search but please don't blame me, I have just a little time to spend on this thing...

I'm planning to buy something to replace my broken 3" drive (cpc6128)
My main goal is to to run demo, games and applications.

So far I've evaluated the option of mounting a 3.5" Pc drive since for me is the cheapest solution.
I'm also thinking about buying the M4 WiFi card (if I've named rightly) or the HxC floppy emulator (I've seen the nice sticked topic where is explained how to fit it inside the case).

So from what I've seen some of you claims that the HxC is the most "compatible" solution, but what this actual means? I've read that it fully emulates a floppy drive so I guess that the main compatibility issues for the M4 board is related to something like track loading or similar stuff right? Can the M4 handle the "mounting" of a disk file and or it just can run onefiled programs??

If I've recognized well, the differences between the two is similar the Commodore64 SD2IEC vs "1541 ULTIMATE" devices, I don't know if your familiar with this..

But the other question is, how many games/demos/applications needs to be runned from a. dsk to works properly?

And what about the 3.5" PC drive solution? It will be able to act as a regular cpc drive and run demos/games and applications flawlessly? And what about transferring files to the disks from the pc, will the transfer of a full dsk image works or I can just copy single files??
I've read that I've to use 720kb disks but it's possible to cover the hole of the most common HD floppies with tape for making believe the drive that they're  DD disks?

Sorry if I have so many confused questions and almost no time to find the answers on my own, I hope to find someone that will help me, but I thank you in advance for the support!

[||C|-|E||]

Certainly, answering all those questions in detail would take quite a decent deal of time  So, just to help you a little bit: (please, if I say something wrong, correct me guys!)

- The HxC is said to be the most compatible because it effectively emulates a floppy drive. The Amstrad really believes that you have a physical drive plugged there and all you need to do is to save your disk images to a SD card (in HFE format) select which one you want to load and work with it exactly the same as if you had a proper disc inserted in your machine. Obviously, in a regular SD card you can pack a ton of demos and games. This device can be plugged to a myriad of systems that originally had floppy drives, like an Amiga or an Atari. This can be important for you as well.

- The M4 is very cool because, being a WIFI solution allows you to launch the images from your PC using a companion app. It works very nicely and is really handy once you have set it up. Moreover, you can also try different ROMs with it. It is less compatible, as far as I know, but the software is constantly improving. This is an Amstrad specific device.

- Plugin a 3.5" drive is just that. You replace a drive with another one and you need to work with physical disks again. If you do not have something like ParaDOS in your machine, the floppies you format with the Amstrad will have the standard capacity you would expect from a 3" disc. Moreover, you can not physically swap sides with 3.5" discs, so it would be recommended to install a switch for this. How do you transfer your files? In the old days I used my PC for this, but now they don´t come with a floppy drive anymore and the cheap USB units that are sold everywhere mostly do not work. So, unless you have a very old computer laying around this could be a bit of a problem. You could also make a cable to connect the Amstrad to your PC, I had one in the 90s, but I don´t remember very well that approach (sorry!  )

[GeoffB17]

Regarding one of the comments from OP..




Yes, you CAN cover the extra hole in the HD 3.5" floppy, and the drive will TRY to use the disk as SD.


But...


I understand that this MIGHT work, but it will never be reliable, and it should be considered as a short term solution ONLY.


The magnetic properties of the SD and HD disks are quite different.   When the drive swaps between SD and HD mode, it alters aspects of it's operation to suit the disk types.   So using the wrong actual disk will not be reliable.


Have you held the two disk types up to the light, so you can look at the magnetic material inside.   With the HD disk, you can see light coming through the material, so it's a LOT thinner.   With the SD, you cannot.  I may have this the wrong way around, but the HD mode uses a much smaller magnetic flux (?) to write, and a more sensitive read (a more powerful signal would damage the data on the other side of the disk, and even adjacent tracks).


Basically, using a HD disk as SD can work initially, or appear to work, but if you keep using the disk, you're headed for problems.


Of course, there may be slight differences with the disks of different manufacturers, so some disks may be less unsafe than others.   I'd assume that checking the light coming through may be a guide, the less transparent the disk, the better for SD operation.


There are articles about the full technical details to be found on the web.


see: http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/guzis.html


Geoff

[Salvo B]

 I've just bought the M4 board from our good Duke... I guess that soon I'll go for the lotharek's build of the HxC emulator, meanwhile as I wrote in another post I'm trying to fixing the mess caused by connecting a PC floppy drive to the CPC.

Well I guess that soon I'll be back in business

Thanks everyone for the great help.

I've found very nice people here!

[tjohnson]

What issues did you have with 3.5" I'm trying to get one working and despite huge amount of time spent I'm not there yet....

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[Salvo B]

What issues did you have with 3.5" I'm trying to get one working and despite huge amount of time spent I'm not there yet....

Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk

In my case something went wrong connecting the power cable and some transistors on the Cpc board was damaged. Even if I'm sure that I've checked the voltage on the pins, I think that I've missed something.

Anyway, one of the biggest problems I guess that is that the drive should be modified to works properly.
I believe that other users more skilled than me could explain it better.

Anyway, after many efforts I got the opportunity to get an HxC from lotharek.pl, it should comes in the next days, so for now I want forget about floppy drives issues

[tjohnson]

In my case something went wrong connecting the power cable and some transistors on the Cpc board was damaged. Even if I'm sure that I've checked the voltage on the pins, I think that I've missed something.

Anyway, one of the biggest problems I guess that is that the drive should be modified to works properly.
I believe that other users more skilled than me could explain it better.

Anyway, after many efforts I got the opportunity to get an HxC from lotharek.pl, it should comes in the next days, so for now I want forget about floppy drives issues

Glad you got your Amstrad fixed and good new on the HxC, please report back on how you find it when you've got it and had a chance  to play with it.  Cheers Trevor

[tjohnson]

Hi Salvo B  how did you find the hxc?  I purchased a gotek and then flashed with hxc firmware total cost less than 20 pounds.  Works well but perhaps not quite as convenient as a floppy drive. Has 15 slots but easy enough to swap images in and out. 

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[Salvo B]

Hi Salvo B  how did you find the hxc?  I purchased a gotek and then flashed with hxc firmware total cost less than 20 pounds.  Works well but perhaps not quite as convenient as a floppy drive. Has 15 slots but easy enough to swap images in and out. 

Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk

Well I guess that HxC works well only with certain gotek models, and AFAIK the limited slot number depends on the the model itself.
My experience with the firmware was amazing but I believe that I've used it with the best floppy emulator board on the market (the lotharek's one), I was very satisfied.
Now I use the board with my Amiga too..
the only annoying thing is to convert the disk images in the hfe format, that results in huge amounts of bytes for big games collection.

I've experienced also some minor problems due to the use of cheapo SD cards...

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