recommended replacement floppy drives

[Randy]

The Sony MP-F11-W is bad, extensive work has failed to get it to work with the 1040STFM.  The Gotek is working fine, but I also have quite a few floppys I would like to access, so a replacement would be needed.  Any suggestions?  I have heard that the 1.4 meg drives are iffy to work on the 1040 without a good bit of modding and I also see that atarifreekz in GB sells a new 1.4 meg stat they state will work, anyone ever tried one of those as a replacement?  Thanks

[ParanoidLittleMan]

For direct attachment, without any mod you need old Atari ST compatible floppy drives. There are some lists around about which are they. And can see offers at ebay - usually at ridiculously high prices. Problem with them is age.

1.4 (HD , high density) drives can work well with Atari ST, and they were used in TT, Mega STE, Falcon by factory. But they were Atari compatible drives too, and now you will hardly spot on such.

What differs is WP (write protect) line, signal. With non Atari compatible drive TOS will not detect disk change, and that can cause errors and even data damage, loss.

More about it, and modification for one concrete model: http://atari.8bitchip.info/flomodam.html

 

[+tf_hh]

4 hours ago, Randy said:

The Sony MP-F11-W is bad, extensive work has failed to get it to work with the 1040STFM.  The Gotek is working fine, but I also have quite a few floppys I would like to access, so a replacement would be needed.  Any suggestions?  I have heard that the 1.4 meg drives are iffy to work on the 1040 without a good bit of modding and I also see that atarifreekz in GB sells a new 1.4 meg stat they state will work, anyone ever tried one of those as a replacement?  Thanks

 

You can use *any* 3.5" floppy drive primarily used for the PC whether it´s a DD drive (720k) or HD drive (1.44mb). There are just a few things to mention.

 

1. The older PC 3.5" floppy drive have several jumpers. This one is the easiest, because you just need to set the jumper for ST usage. If you have such a drive, just enter the model´s name with "atari st" in Google and you will find a solution

2. Most "newer" (i.e. all floppy drives produced after 1995 or so, productions end in 2009) floppy drives doesn´t have any jumper.

 

Two things must be set to let work a 3.5" standard PC drive: Assignment as Drive 0 or A: (mostly called "DS0") and automatic HD/DD detection. The automatic HD detection is default since decades, so mostly here´s nothing to do, if you just want a DD (720k) replacement for your standard Atari ST floppy drive.

 

PC drives are always set to DS1 (drive "B"). So you need to change it to DS0. Some drives has solder bridges or zero ohm resistors on some pads. An example from a very very common drive, the TEAC FD235HF-A291. All TEAC 3.5" HD Drives are namend "FD235HF", but the letters and numbers after this are important. The A2xx series has by default no jumpers any longer. But it´s easy. Here´s a picture from the bottom side of the drive:

 

 

Of course this is only valid for this special TEAC drive. Sony MFD920 drives for examples has two bridges in the lower right corner with a distance of 15mm to each other. Just examine the PCB of your drive, in 50% of all cases you will find such jumperfields or places to change the DS1/DS0 assignment easily.

 

Some even newer drives doesn´t have this kind of selection. They´re hardcoded to DS1. But here´s another simple solution, without scratching on the fine traces, which is a high risk of damager other traces, too.

 

1. Look for Pin 12 of the interface connector, this is DS1

2. Use a solder sucker and remove the solder from that pad, you will see the part of the multi-pin connector

3. Check that the strip itself is freed from solder

4. Use a plier and pull the pin out of the multi-pin connector. This require some force.

5. Make a solder or wire bridge between pin 12 (now with an empty hole) and it´s neighbor pin 10, which is DS0

6. You´re done. Such a drive will be recognized now in all STs

 

Good luck!

 

 

 

 

 

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Instead messing with drive traces swap drive select DS0 and DS1 (A or B) lines on cable.

[Randy]

Thanks guys, this is very helpful!  I will give this a try and see what happens.  Thanks again!

[amiman99]

Epson SMD-340, works well with my Amiga, with a small wire, I think from pin 2 to 34 to enable disk change or something like that. It has DS0 jumpers, so it should work on Atari ST.