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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Cass on October 30, 2005, 11:13:59 AM
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Is it possible to exchange the standard HD A4000 floppy for a PC one?
I know that you have to create a circuit for a DD->HD floppy, but I'm talking for the existent one.
Any suggestions/guidelines are welcome :-)
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it would only work as DD (all you need is to cross some wires (http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18441))
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So, by crossing these wires, there won't be any problem? I'l have to give it a try. Anyone has tried this before -noticed any problems- ?
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The "diskchange" and "ready" lines might give you grief...
No "diskchange" means that the Amiga won't recognise when a disk has been inserted/removed/swapped - this is the problem I had when trying to modify a PC DD drive for use with an Amiga.
I gave up in the end and got an actual Amiga drive. However, I appreciate that finding a working HD Amiga drive might be difficult!
- Ali
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Some PC HD drives have jumpers on them (like Sony) that allow you to use one as a DD drive in the A4000. You still need to type in the diskchange command in a shell window to get the drive to look for the disk but it works.
You won't be able to get a PC HD drive to operate as an Amiga HD drive without extra hardware, because the Amiga HD drives slow down to something like 150 rpm to write double the number of tracks on a disk to deliver high density. PC drives do this differently for high density; though regular double density should work okay.
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If you check out my FS items on Amibench, you'll note I have an internal A4000 HD for sale, plus many other items.
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My suggestion is not to bother with HD-floppy drives at all, just use a DD drive. Over the years I have tried many HD floppy drives but never found a single one that has been particularly reliable. Why do you need a HD floppy drive anyway? If you need to transfer stuff from the PC it is much easier to do it over a network or serial cable or simply burn files onto a CDRW.
As far as DD drive goes, it is fairly simple to modify a Panasonic JU-257A605P floppy to be completely compatible with the Amiga. Here you can find instructions on how to do it:
http://www.softpres.org/?id=article:hack:modifying_the_pansonic_ju-257a605p_fdd
The mod is easy to do and works perfectly. I have done it on a couple of drives and they work as if they were standard Amiga floppies all along - with every game and automatic diskchange as well. The only thing that the website doesn't mention that the drive has to be additionally configured as unit 0 instead of 1 otherwise it won't work.
You have to be careful when buying your drive as there are lots of similar but not identical models. For example this mod does not apply to the A606P.