HELP! Cannot transfer files from PC to Amiga 500 in ANY way!

[Amiga1983]

Hi everyone,

My name is Laura. I have been registered to this forum for long time, but never been really active. First of all I hope I posted this question in the right section, if not I apologize.
I'm not new to the Amiga world: I grew up with an Amiga 2000, then I switched to a A1200, and for a short period of time I also had a A600 and A3000. About 6 years ago, after spending money and time to expand it, I made the terrible mistake to sell my A1200 for a ridiculous price. I regretted that soon, and have been unable to find or afford another one during the years.

Two weeks ago I won the auction for an Amiga 500 Rev.5 with 1MB RAM and ROM 1.3. Before I explain the problems I am having with it I would like to state that I spent days trying to solve this issue and I've done online searches for hours, but the info I found where either unhelpful or incomplete for my particular situation, and most of the time even confusing. I know that after more than 8 years I'm a bit rusty, but this is something that I used to do that in less than a minute with my old A1200. I am having a VERY hard time trying to transfer files from my iMac (with dual boot Win7/ OSX) to my Amiga 500.
My (limited) resources are: an old Workbench 1.3 floppy disk, an unbranded null modem cable with USB adapter, and external Mitsumi FDD 061M USB floppy drive, an authentic copy of Amiga Forever+Amiga Explorer, WinUAE3300_x64, and some empty floppy disks.


These are the ways I am trying to transfer files between my computer and Amiga, and the problems I am facing:

1) The serial connection via Amiga Explorer fails after the "RAM:Setup" command: many other users complain about the same issue. I assumed it could be caused by a bad quality (or badly wired) null modem cable, so I decided to purchase the highly recommended Monoprice 6-Feet Null Modem DB9F/DB25F Molded Cable. I should receive it in a couple of days so I still don't know if that will solve my problem or not, but I'll let you know.

2) I installed WinUAE and formatted a 1.44MB floppy disk in Amiga format with the emulator; whenever I place Amiga files on it or try to write an .adf image via transdisk, no matter what I do, I always get the "DF0:BAD" or "DF0:DOS" error when I insert that back in the Amiga (even if I cover the second hole with tape). Moreover, when I use the "transdisk > floppyname:filename.adf -s 0 -e 79" command in a new shell, the transfer gets interrupted by the "Disk is Full" error whenever it reaches Track 74 or 78.

3) Tired of all this, I installed Total Commander with the AmigaDX plugin and tried to write an .adf file on a floppy. The Amiga still won't recognize it.

4) I also tried ADFMaster for Mac OS, but my Mitsumi USB FDD is very unrealiable (sometimes it fails to format, and won't appear in the list of devices, especially in Mac OS environment). Uunfortunately I don't have any other external floppy drive to try.


Any idea of why this is happening? Am I doing something wrong? Is Workbench 1.3 too obsolete for this procedure?

I have already tried different things, such as cleaning both A500 and Mitsumi floppy drives heads with a head cleaning diskette, but nothing changed. I also noticed that the Mitsumi USB FDD is very unrealiable (sometimes it fails to format, and won't appear in the list of devices), but unfortunately I don't have any other external floppy drive to try.
If all else fails, there are other solutions for my problems that I would like to try, but I'm not sure which one is the best one. Can I upgrade its ROM to Kickstart 3.1.4 and use OS 3.1 (since it comes with CrossDOS drivers) without making the system unstable or having to solder something? Or should I purchase an internal Gotek drive and say goodbye to floppy disks and frustration? Believe me, reselling this A500 and purchasing another A1200 is on my wishlist, but unfortunately I cannot afford one at the moment. So here I am, stuck with all my ideas and doubts and unable to use this Amiga.

Any assistance you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

[Amiga1983]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to thank all of you for welcoming me and for your replies! 

I apologize for not mentioning, in my initial message, that the first thing I did when I started this process was reading all the documentation on the Amiga Explorer website. I followed all the steps to make sure the settings for the serial connection are the same on PC and Amiga.

Although I still remembered something from the past and I just needed to refresh my memory, I found and printed useful guides such as how to use CrossDOS (it was introduced with AmigaOS 3.0 and 3.1, so there's nothing I can do with my primitive 1.3), HDToolBox, and the different ways to transfer files PS<->Amiga. I also found useful notes that I wrote in the past, but unfortunately while those info worked perfectly for my old Amiga 1200, the same cannot be said for this very limited Amiga 500.
For this reason I don't think I will waste money expanding it too much, especially if it's impossible to add an HDD or internal/external CF adapter like I did with my old A1200. My plan is to make it functional enough to enjoy it until the moment I'll be able to resell it (I also have its original box) and finally afford another Amiga 1200. I even kept the internal CF adapter, CF cards, cables, external CD Rom, network card and many other things from my old one.

Matt_H: it may sound silly, but the reason why I uninstalled the latest version of WinUAE and I am now using an older and more stable/complete one is because the possibility to mount external/removable devices in the Settings has been removed (my USB floppy drive, in this case). Moreover, I also noticed bugs in the latest version. For example, the keyboard becomes unresponsive when emulation is on, and many adfs won't load, making the emulator unusable. Until the developers fix those bugs, for the first time ever I will only use an older version.

You're right, utri007. I realize that the null modem cable I have might have become defective during the years. After all, I bought it about 15 years ago for my old A2000 when I was still living in Europe. It could have got damaged when I moved to the US. Also, I opened it and even tho I'm not an expert, I believe it may be improperly wired for this purpose (according to the scheme posted on the Amiga Forever website). I'll post here a couple of photos of the wiring of my cable so you can have a look and eventually let me know what you think about it.

Yes, unfortunately the cable that giZmo350 recommended is for older computers with a serial port. The only solution that works for me is a DB9F/DB25F null modem cable, and a DB9F to USB adapter. That Monoprice cable I purchased after doing some online searches and reading about that in some post should work for Amiga 500, or at least that's what I read in some positive reviews. Keeping my fingers crossed.  I should receive it between November 10-16. If it won't work, I think I'll go ahead and purchase an internal Gotek drive.

Well guys, I'll keep you posted.  Thank you again for your help! 

[Amiga1983]

Matt_H: please pardon my ignorance...I totally got confused with FS_UAE for Mac. That's what happens when you work with two different OS at the same time. You are absolutely right: the latest version of WinUAE for Windows (the 4.4.0) works perfectly fine, and nothing has changed in the Settings menu. It's the Mac version of this emulator that, unfortunately, has compatibility issues and various bugs.

[Amiga1983]

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for your replies and suggestions! I really appreciated all of them, even if unfortunately I won’t be able to spend more than $60 for this A500. I really cannot afford anything in this particular moment, and since this won’t be my “final” Amiga (my dream is, in the future, to own another A1200)  all I need is a cheap solution. What @scuzzb494 suggested (thank you!) is probably the best one for my problem.

I wanted to update you about my initial post: yesterday  I finally received the new null-modem cable from Monoprice. Making sure that the settings were the same on both iMac (running Windows 7) and Amiga 500 (OS 1.3), I tried to make them communicate with each other using Amiga Explorer installed on my iMac.

Here’s what I discovered after many attempts using different settings: if I use the recommended settings (Baud Rate: 19200, Buffer size: 4096, etc...) the **BREAK line never appears in the Amiga shell. On the contrary, it appears when I lower the baud rate to 9600 on both computers. Unfortunately, no matter what I try, I keep on getting the ”Error reading from serial port” on my computer, and “Unable to load RAM:Setup: file in not an object module” on my Amiga. COM3 is also the only port that works.  I didn’t think about replacing the DB9 to USB cable. The one I’m using is almost 15 years old and may be damaged or incompatible with Win 7.

@OldAmigan: unfortunately my external floppy drive plugged to my iMac doesn’t recognize 720k Amiga floppies. When I insert one it asks me to format it. Because of that, I can’t even format it at 720k (only 1.44mb, otherwise it would always abort the operation giving me an error). I tried everything, but I believe the USB floppy drive that I’m using is too new for this purpose. I read that some older models (such as LACIE) can accomplish this task, but if I don’t know exactly what to buy and if it’s compatible with my iMac I don’t want to waste more money.

@First Ninja: to think that I had all those expansions for my old Amiga 1200...I spent so much for it. Cannot spend the same amount of money anymore. It was different back then. I still have the XSurf 100, NetPCM010, Poseidon, EasyNet, AdaPCMCFL original floppy disks that I purchased years ago. Although I sold the cards , I still I have all the cables, PCMCIA adapter, CF cards, and even a wifi network card that I was never able to use. I wish I could use this stuff with my A500 but there’s no compatibility (especially because I only have a KS 1.3). An external CF adapter and internal 40gb hdd used to be all I really needed back then to transfer data PC->A1200.

At this point I’m really at a loss....

[Amiga1983]

Or the OP could simply buy' Amiga Format Cover Disk - Collection No.8' from Ebay currently £1.99 which when loaded lets the user see PC disks. It really isn't that hard especially if the end user wants to experience life as it was all those years ago.

I just purchased it Not sure how long it will take to arrive here in the US from the UK, especially during this pandemic. Hopefully international mail won’t be suspended again! Keeping my finger crossed... 

[Amiga1983]

Hi everyone,

I have an update on my Mac->Amiga transfer issues, and not a very pleasant one unfortunately. I ended up purchasing both CrossDOS and MultiDOS on floppy disks, but for the latter I’ll have to wait until February because it comes from the UK (I live in the US).

So this is what happened: I inserted the CrossDOS 4.02 floppy disk in my Amiga 500 running my old Workbench release 1.3 GAMMA version 34.4 main floppy disk (the only one I have because I lost the "Extras" long time ago). I clicked on the large software icon called “CrossDOS MSDOS_FileSystem” and noticed various icons such as “Attach”, “Attach.DI0”, “Attach.DI1”, “Install_MSDOSFS”, and so on.

Problem #1: because my Amiga 500 has no hard disk, I cannot install CrossDOS. I read the documentation (“READ.ME”, “Tech_Ref”, and especially “In Case of Difficulty”), but it's not helping me to figure out how to use this software.

Problem #2: I launched “Attach.DI0”, but my Amiga still showed floppy disks formatted on my iMac as "DF0:BAD" (these floppies work and are tested). I wrote .adf files on some of them with Total Commander, but the situation didn’t change on my Amiga.

I’m pretty sure I'm doing something wrong here. I see that CrossDOS has a folder called Systems that contains other options, such as “MFormat”. I wonder if I should try to format a floppy disk with CrossDOS and see if the usb floppy drive connected to my iMac will recognize and read/write it?
This is a sad situation. Maybe my Amiga 500 is too “basic” for all this? I’m getting very confused and frustrated. I really wanted this to work but I can't make CrossDOS work on my Amiga, so I don’t see any other option but to buy a Gotek drive soon.

[Amiga1983]

This morning I copied the files over from ARCADIA MultiDOS disk to my own Bench disk which involved LIBS,L,C and DEVS files and then from a simple command

PCMOUNTALL FROM devs:mountlist.multidos

I was able to mount both Df0 and Df1 as PC drives [ MD0 and MD1]. Better still with the command:

PCFORMAT DRIVE MD0: NAME [ dusk name ]

I was able to format a HD disk with the corner taped over and then could see that on a Windows PC. Amazing. You need SID or DOpus cus you can't see files without icons in 1.3 The software isn't suppose to work under WB 2.0 but I got it working on 1.3. I have photographed everything and will appear as a blog in a week or so.

Thank you for your advice, @scuzzb494. As soon as I get the MultiDOS floppy I'll also try this and see what happens.

[Amiga1983]

Hi GiZmo, I had a great Thanksgiving, thanks! Hope you did too! 

The versions of OS X I used are High Sierra and Catalina, but I must specify that for this task I'm mainly using Windows 7, either running in dual boot or in a virtual machine. I tried so many times to format floppy disks to 720k in the Command Prompt with the same command you wrote in your post, to no avail (I can successfully format them with the regular Format a: command, but that’s about it). I also tried with Format a: /f:720, but I always get the same error: “Parameters not supported”. Just in case, I installed XP on the virtual machine and tried the same procedure, but still got the same error.

I made sure to put back the piece of black tape to cover the second hole of the floppy disks each time I inserted them into the disk drive of my Amiga, but I’d still get the "DF0:BAD" or "DF0:DOSc" icons. When I saw the "DF0:DOSc" icon I though "Well well, that's an improvement" and immediately launched CrossDOS, but obviously my excitement was short lived when nothing changed after loading Attach.DI0 (Amiga asks me to switch between the Workbench floppy and the CrossDOS one at least 4 times just for completing this task!). Those floppy disks can still be formatted successfully in their original format on the Amiga after covering the second hole, and under Windows with the Format a: command after removing the piece of tape, but that’s all I can do. I cannot format them to 720k, nor can my Amiga read them afterwards. I’m basically stuck.

At this point I believe the culprit is my cheap external Mitsumi USB floppy drive: it's either defective, too new, or incompatible. The reason why I'm saying this is also because while I’m having those problems in Windows, Mac OS doesn’t even recognize this FDD and it doesn’t show up under Disk Utility.
I was watching some old USB floppy drives such as the LACIE Pocket 706018 MyFloppy3 that I read on some forums should do the trick; instead I decided to go ahead and purchase a Gotek drive because I am not willing at the moment to waste more time and money for a device that I don’t even know for sure if it will solve my problem. And believe me, I’m not too happy about this. I was hoping for a more “traditional” (translation: old fashioned) way to transfer adf files from computer to Amiga, but I guess I’ll have to accept this arrangement until the day I’ll be able to find/afford another Amiga 1200.


PS: Wish I could find a purist who hates their Amiga 1200 so much to the point they would trade it for my classic Amiga 500 with original floppy drive, box, internal Gotek drive, UK power supply (that I don't need because I use my US version), and memory expansion included. I would gladly part from it, and even add the original Amiga tank mouse as a gift...I'm sure they would have the experience to enjoy this A500 much more than I do