Amiga won't recognize 5.25" external disk drive

[Nebulon]

Has anyone successfully managed to get an Amiga 5.25" external diskette drive working on either an OCS or AGA machine?

 

If so, how did you get your Amiga to recognize it?

 

 

[+save2600]

Not without the proper software (like Transformer, Janus, etc. to be used as a PeeCee drive under emulation) or a new mountlist config for the Amiga side of things. See here:

 

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=11944

 

The A1020 is a 40 track drive (the Amigaos system automounts all 80 track drives, either 3"1/2 or 5"1/4). So you will have to write a mountlist like in earlier days of WB1.2/1.3 ! I'll suggest you simply check and adapt the mountlist file in Devs: directory on a WB1.3 (or 1.2) disk...

Mountlist sample (1.3 style)

Code:

/* Mount a 5.25" disk drive to be mounted as DF1: */

DF1: Device = trackdisk.device
Unit = 1 /* first external unit */
Flags = 1 /* important ! */
Surfaces = 2
BlocksPerTrack = 11
Reserved = 2
Interleave = 0
LowCyl = 0 ; HighCyl = 39
Buffers = 20
BufMemType = 1 /* or 3 if you run OS 1.x */
#

Dosdriver form (2.x/3.x style)

Code:

Device = trackdisk.device
Unit = 1 /* first external unit */
Flags = 1 /* important ! */
Surfaces = 2
BlocksPerTrack = 11
Reserved = 2
Interleave = 0
LowCyl = 0 ; HighCyl = 39
Buffers = 20
BufMemType = 1 /* or 3 if you run OS 1.x */

Simply save it as DF1 (or A1020 if you prefer) in your Dosdrivers directory (generally in Sys:storage). Open a shell and try mount df1: (or A1020 !

According to (french programmer) Etienne Vogt, the important thing is to set Flags=1 (tells the trackdisk.device that you really want to mount a 40 track drive, else it will ignore it)

You could also try to mount 360 Kb MS-DOS disks with something like (to save as PC1 dosdriver or A1020PC for example):

Code:

FileSystem = L:CrossDOSFileSystem
Device = mfm.device
Unit = 1 /* first external unit */
Flags = 1
Surfaces = 2
BlocksPerTrack = 9
Reserved = 1
Interleave = 0
LowCyl = 0
HighCyl = 39
Buffers = 20
BufMemType = 1 /* or 3 if you run OS 1.x */
StackSize = 600
Priority = 5
BufMemType = 0
StackSize = 600
Priority = 5
GlobVec = -1
DosType = 0x4D534400
Mount = 1

[Tonyvdb]

I may be wrong but I dont think Ive ever seen an Amiga working with a 5 1/4" drive. Even the A500 only used the 3 1/2" drives.

[+save2600]

 

...the A1020 was designed primarily for PeeCee emulation with the A1000 and A2000 computers. No real practical reason to use one today, but with all things vintage computing, we choose to use because it's there and we can.

 

Years ago, before all these floppy emulators entered the scene, was nice to have one of these to access our C64 files and software.

[Nebulon]

Thanks for the mountlist info!

 

Whenever I see one of those listings, I recoil in terror. However, I'll give it a try (could be a good pet project).

[Nebulon]

Well, I hate to say it, but none of the mountlists managed to get the drive running. If I type the mount command a second time, it says that the device is already mounted so it looks like it took. I'm using an Amiga 4000/040 with WB 3.1

 

I know the drive has power, because when I put in a 5.25" diskette and close the latch it spins for a bit.

 

For people that actually did get one of these running, what happened? Did your drive show up as an icon on the desktop? If not, how did you manage to read the contents of the disk or format a disk?

[David Baldwin]

try it with crossdos

[awhite2600]

I'm not sure how much help I can offer, but I will add what I remember to this thread.

 

I have an A1020 5¼" drive for my Amiga 1000. It was purchased along with the Transformer software in about 1989. Sadly, my A1000 is packed away and not readily accessible to do any testing.

 

The Amiga will not read PC formatted disks without the Transformer software, CrossDOS or a similar utility. Using the Mountlist will setup the drive to function as a 5¼" Amiga drive. I recall that you need to use the Format command in a CLI window to format a 5¼" disk to Amiga specifications. This disk will be in Amiga format and won't work in a PC. You can read/write from the disk like a 3½" disk once it's formatted. I also recall that you needed to issue some sort of "change disk" command whenever you swapped disks. The Amiga doesn't automatically recognize disk changes like it does with 3½" drives.

 

Unfortunately my experience with the A1020 is limited to WB 1.2/1.3. I suspect that the above applies with WB 3.1.

[R.Cade]

To confuse things a bit more, it is possible to use an 80-track 5.25" drive and disks on the Amiga if you get the cabling right - it was a cheap way to use the Amiga since 5.25" media was much cheaper back then.

 

The 1020 is not such a drive, though- it was ONLY used or needed for the PC Transporter.

[Nebulon]

Okay, no things are starting to make more sense. The change disk command that you mention is the same one that I use for handling 1GB Iomega Jaz cartridges. Same idea. Insert a cart and type the command. So that's definitely familiar.

 

The 5.25" drive I have appears to be a 3rd party drive with DIP switch settings to allow for either 40 or 80-track functionality.

 

I'll try the appropriate software util and see how it responds.

 

What would be really cool is if someone wrote a bit copy program like Central Point's Copy II PC so that you could use this drive to duplicate C64 and A8 disks.

 

There's hope for this thing yet!

[David Baldwin]

back in the day when the drive came out what size storage it had on it if it was only for crossdos pc dos disks was it 300k in size msdos 3 or 4

and it might be only amiga 1000 compbatible.

[R.Cade]

So you do not have an A1020 drive?

 

In that case, you may just have a regular Amiga-compatible 5.25" drive. In 80-track mode, it should act just like an Amiga drive as DF2 with different media.

 

On an A4000, it may be DF2 as the first external drive, depending on the jumper settings on the board.

Edited September 28, 2016 by R.Cade

[carlsson]

Nebulon: It was mentioned in the thread on Amiga.org that save2600 linked to above, that Disk2Disk from Central Coast Software, as well as the Aminet available program 1541 both are capable of reading 1541 floppy disks with a 1020. Not sure if those will work as well with your drive. There also is 551Conv on Aminet for reading/writing Atari 8-bit disks with the same drive.

 

Whether those programs are capable of backing up every single bit (think G64 on the Commodore side) or just a logic copy (D64 style), I can't tell.

 

If you just need a way to read and write files to a 1541 style drive on the Amiga, there are simple adapters using the parallel port, similar to the X1541 series but using standard 1N4148 diodes instead of Schottky ones. I used to use such software quite a lot between 1995 and 2001. I'm not sure if there ever were methods to get G64 style backups.

[+OLD CS1]

I have some 5.25" external (non-Amiga, cannot recall the manufacturer, but I will look,) and the Amiga recognizes it no problem. I use HD 5.25" floppies and format 880k. I recall in another forum someone said the Amiga recognizes it as if it were a 3.5" drive, hence the 880k format.

 

As for the 1020, now I am curious. I was certain I used it without a mount list, but now I have to pull it out to have a look.