Suprise: not a standard floppy on the Commodore A1011.

[flaviosr]

Dear All,

I just bought a Commodore A1011 external floppy drive.
The drive was listed as not working... the drive sees the floppy but does not read it.
I bought it hoping to simply replace the internal drive but... SURPRISE!!!
The drive is not a standard one. It is a "longer" FB354 with added circuitry, so that in a single connector there is data and power.
Does anybody know if somewhere can be found an adaptor so that I can use a standard FB354?
Or... very technical... can somebody give me a link on some guides to repair (realign?) the original drive?

Thank you

[flaviosr]

Oh My!

After sending this post I was looking at my opened A1011... and I decided to look over the internet for realigning posts.
I found a sentence in which the writer said that a disaligned drive works well apart that it is able to read and write only its own disks. Now it is obvious... NOW...
So I decided to make a try and I found I was lucky. The drive worked (more or less) this way.
But something was buzzing on my head and I decided to try again with a "working" floppy and... NOT THE DRIVE WORKS!
I think the explanation could be quite simple... unscrewing it all made all the mechanical parts more free to move... before closing it again I had to use oil on moving parts.
Anyway my curiosity about an adaptor still remains: can somebody help?
And also about the realigning... I have other drives with the same original issue ...
Thank you

[BLTCON0]

These are Chinon FB-354 rev D drives, they integrate the motor flip-flop and NAND gates IIRC.
If you have a standard external drive (i.e. one where the drive, if removed, will instantly work as an internal amiga drive), you can use the adapter PCB to accomodate a standard FB-354 drive.
You'll have to check if it fits, however, as space can be tight inside the A1011. Also, since nearly all external drives use slim (1") drives, they usually only provide +5V on the internal connector. So you'll have to modify that part too to cater for the +12V the FB-354 also requires.

[guest11527]

Or... very technical... can somebody give me a link on some guides to repair (realign?) the original drive?

For realignment, given that you have at least one working drive to prepare a calibration disk:

http://aminet.net/package/driver/media/TrackDiskSync

[LoadWB]

Every 1011 I have uses a different physical connection than regular internal drives.  It is more compact and I have not worked out the pin-out.  I discovered this will attempting to replace the internal drive with FZ-357 mechanisms to make an HD 1011.

[BLTCON0]

Every 1011 I have uses a different physical connection than regular internal drives.  It is more compact and I have not worked out the pin-out.  I discovered this will attempting to replace the internal drive with FZ-357 mechanisms to make an HD 1011.

The pinout is exactly that of the external DB-23 connector.
It's a 24-pin dual-row header, with the 24-th pin being a NC.
The same arrangement seems to be universally used on generic external drives, anyway (there's a good reason for that).

In essence, the special FB-354 revD inside the A1011 is the result of the integration of a standard FB-354 and a generic adapter board for external drives.

[flaviosr]

These are Chinon FB-354 rev D drives, they integrate the motor flip-flop and NAND gates IIRC.
If you have a standard external drive (i.e. one where the drive, if removed, will instantly work as an internal amiga drive), you can use the adapter PCB to accomodate a standard FB-354 drive.
You'll have to check if it fits, however, as space can be tight inside the A1011. Also, since nearly all external drives use slim (1") drives, they usually only provide +5V on the internal connector. So you'll have to modify that part too to cater for the +12V the FB-354 also requires.

Thanx. I have looked on ebay but I have not found anything... i tried different combination of words but... nothing.
Do you have a link... somewhere?

[Bigbronc]

I had drive issues to include the external 1011 drive. I opened them and cleaned the heads, screw drives that moves the head. When I opened the 1011 every thing was differant. My question on this thread is why do you want to swap drives? I cleaned the 1011 the same as the internal drives,only to discover it has a weight glued to the head device. Like you would put a nickel on old phonograph records. I found it when I opened the case. After cleaning and testing several times only to fail, I glued the weight back as I could see the old glue markings. Vola hope this helps if you are having drive issues.

[BLTCON0]

Thanx. I have looked on ebay but I have not found anything... i tried different combination of words but... nothing.
Do you have a link... somewhere?

Unfortunately you won't know if an external drive uses a generic adapter board before you open the casing and take a look at the PCB. The plain white ones usually do, but that's still not 100% guaranteed.
For example, the Datalux SV-702 external drive came with either a generic board + standard "Amiga" drive or a custom board + custom Epson SMD-400 drive (probably a variant used in older synthies).

Alternatively, you can use one of those Gotek adapter boards, provided they implement the MTR signal (search ebay for "Gotek adapter"), assuming it'll fit in the A1011 case.
You'll still have to rewire the (most likely missing) +12V line, desolder the DB23 connector and craft some wiring.