A1020 5.25 Mountlist entry for workbench 1.3

[George S]

I have an Amiga 1000, workbench 1.3 and an 1020 5.25 drive. I used to have this working as an Amiga drive and copied system directory files to it to do away with workbench disk swapping. I no longer have that WB 1.3 disk and am trying to write a mountlist entry.
I tried this, but when I format I get a handler not found error. If I put this same entry on a WB 1.2 disk and attempt to format, it starts formatting the fails at verification and says bad header try another disk. I tried three. They all cannot be bad.

DF1: Device = trackdisk.device
Unit = 1
Flags = 1
Surfaces = 2
BlocksPerTrack = 11
Reserved = 2
Interleave = 0
LowCyl = 0 ; HighCyl = 39
Buffers = 20
BufMemType = 3

Also is there a Fast File mountlist entry for the A1020?

Could someone provide the correct mountlist entry to use the A1020 5.25 drive as a half size (440) Amiga drive? I do not want to use it with transformer and IBM 360 disks.
Thank you.

[PlatformerZ]

The mountlist you've written is correct compared to the WB 1.3 mountlist in SYS:Devs other than that specifies DF2: rather than DF1: as you have. 40 tracks would be 440k I assume.
    Something I didn't know was, until reading online, the A1020 doesn't support diskchange detection so when removing a disk and inserting another you need to type in CLI "DiskChange DF2:" after changing disks.

 Another point shown online is REMOVE DF1: could be needed first if DF1: is auto-mounted at boot for a 880k drive?

[George S]

Thank you for your reply.
I made a copy of the original WB 1.3. To be consistent, I renamed the last entry in mountlist which is for an 880 drive to df2: and changed Unit to 2. Then went up to df2: a 440 drive  and changed it to df1, and changed Unit to 1. No big deal.

However, I tried formatting eight different disks. Seven disks started formatting, then at the end it says,
Verifying cyl 39, 0 to go
Format failed-bad sector header
Try a different disk

One disk at the start of formatting said, format failed no sector header. Try a different disk.

I even tied inserting disks that previously had worked and were labeled workbench 1.3. I know they used to work. After inserting I typed diskchange df1: then dir, and got a reply, not a dos disk.

I have 8 more disks to try, but it seems pointless. Disks look to be in good condition.

The A1020 makes a gronking sound at the end while verifying, then says try a different disk.

Everything was in working order when stored away in a clean dry closet.

What could be wrong?

[PlatformerZ]

Over the past 8 years I've had half a dozen floppy drives fail for no rational reason. Some were seeking tracks without any signal from the Amiga, others failed to read consistently giving bad sectors or not reading at all - ndos. It's quite a phenomenon in these times that the modus operandum of tech is a slightly more diverse demographic on a permissive timeline. I get quite emotionally bogged with the constant need to service the floppy drives; caused by a shift it said tech status in the location.

I can only recommend investing your energy into the drive by way of cleaning the heads with a bud tip and isopropyl alcohol and even lubricate the rails with some oil or silicon/graphite. If all else fails; bringing a floppy drive up to speed with the modern matrix may involve a head alignment.

[George S]

I joined the English Amiga Board for some advice. The mountlist is correct. It was suggested to oil the drive rails and realign the drive.

Well, I attempted to oil the rails. I removed the cover, took out an additional 8 screws only to discover about an additional dozen screws to get at the drive. That is more part placement and screws than I can remember. So I put it back together and it works, or doesn't work the same as before.

I think I am at an end of this project with no useable results. I do have 1.5 megs of memory so I can copy essential c: files to ram:c, assign df0:c to ram:c and at least inspect the stack of disks I have without disk swapping workbench.

Dealing with the A1020 will have to be for someone with more know-how than I,  or put in the trash.

Anything else I should try?

Again, thank you.

[George S]

Success in fixing the A1020 drive!
My son came over with a computer tool repair kit. We took the drive apart and found the head just stuck on the rails, frozen. With a bit of effort we pushed the head and got it unstuck. Then oiled the rails and put it back together. Plugged it back in and it worked just fine.
Thank you all for your help
George