Atari 520STFM and Gotek as External

[ngtwolf]

Hi All,

 

I hate to bring this topic up since I see it's generally been talked about to death, but I don't see my particular problem so I figured i'd ask.

 

Currently set up the Gotek in an external drive case and have my regular internal floppy drive. I've done the switch mod as detailed just about everywhere, the one where you snip the pins on the yamaha chip and connect the switch. With it switch the one way, internal is A and external gotek is B.. everything works fine. Switched the other way, it knows that the gotek is A and the internal drive is B, and HXC program boots up. However, upon bootup, I get the infamous 'LBA CHANGE TEST FAILED! Write Issue?' message. If I physically put the Gotek internally it's all good and I can program some slots. As well, after programming those slots and moving the gotek back as the external drive, if I switch to those they boot up and run fine. Obviously I can just do this in indexed mode and not deal with all this, but I'd like to do the autoboot method.

 

Anyway, reading the forums, it appears like lots of people have this set up and working this way, so not sure what my issue might be. The only thing I have done differently is that I'm using the flashfloppy software to image it instead of the hxc software. Has anyone else used that and have it configured this way (as external drive)?

 

If any of this helps, i'm using the autoboot.hfe from 4/28/2018 and the hxcsdfe.cfg from 12/8/2016. My Flashfloppy firmware is 0.9.29a and the emulator file selector software is 1.66a. (update, also used the flashfloppy hxcsdfe.cfg from 9/30/18 and autoboot.hfe (version 1.72-ff) from 9/30/2018 - same results).

 

If theres a thread that i missed that addresses this particular issue, pointing me there would be great too... most every one I found is usually because they didn't have the switch or it wasn't working in some other way, where-as this appears to be just the hxc autoboot software that isn't working for me, every other aspect works fine.

 

Thanks!

Edited October 4, 2018 by ngtwolf

[ngtwolf]

Updating my own post.. broke down and paid for the hxc software and went that route. Also used a different gotek. Still get's the same error, so i'm at a loss. At least I know now the hxc software isn't any better.

[power]

don't want to start a new topic if unnecessary has anyone gone the other way and made the floppy the external and kept the GOTEK internal. It's a 1040STE if that makes any difference.

[ngtwolf]

don't want to start a new topic if unnecessary has anyone gone the other way and made the floppy the external and kept the GOTEK internal. It's a 1040STE if that makes any difference.

 

I actually have it set that way now. I did the switch and since I couldn't get the gotek to work as external for me, I just 3d printed the mount and put the gotek inside and using a floppy as external. It's pretty much the same process no matter which one you have as external, its just for me the hxc software was a lot more finicky then the disk drive is.

 

Oh, this is assuming you have an external floppy drive already (since you need the power and the cable), which i did.

[power]

 

I actually have it set that way now. I did the switch and since I couldn't get the gotek to work as external for me, I just 3d printed the mount and put the gotek inside and using a floppy as external. It's pretty much the same process no matter which one you have as external, its just for me the hxc software was a lot more finicky then the disk drive is.

 

Oh, this is assuming you have an external floppy drive already (since you need the power and the cable), which i did.

 

good to know, i asked because the STE I bought has a Gotek and no floppy. But I do have some floppies if that makes any sense. I figure it's easier to primarily use the Gotek and just pull the floppy drive out of the drawer if needed.

[ngtwolf]

 

good to know, i asked because the STE I bought has a Gotek and no floppy. But I do have some floppies if that makes any sense. I figure it's easier to primarily use the Gotek and just pull the floppy drive out of the drawer if needed.

 

Yeah, I wanted to keep my ST stock which is why I wanted to keep the drive inside the machine, but honestly, almost none of my disks work anymore (3 1/2" floppies were such crap.. i have older systems with 5 1/4 disks that have a much higher reliability percentage) so I decided it just wasn't worth it.. I was also lazy to print the mount, but in the end that would have been so much faster than all the time I wasted trying to get the external gotek working. I have the switch if I ever want to use the external floppy drive, but because of the media issues, that'll be less and less common going forward.