A4000T Replacement Floppy

[MelfNeerg]

After many years of using my AI A4kT without using the floppy drive, today I needed to.

And it is dead!

What drive can I put in its place? I had a Chinon FZ-357, but it wasnt interested in it at all. Can I stick a standard drive from an A500 or A1200 into it?

TIA

[Effy]

A very easy way to solve this problem is to use a standard external drive. Just move the jumper close to the IDE port from int to ext and then your external drive will be recognized as DF0 so you won´t need your internal drive anymore  :-P

[MelfNeerg]

Effy wrote:
A very easy way to solve this problem is to use a standard external drive. Just move the jumper close to the IDE port from int to ext and then your external drive will be recognized as DF0 so you won´t need your internal drive anymore  :-P

That would be a splendid idea apart from the small fact that an A4000T doesnt have an external floppy port...  :-D

[orange]

you could put in standard PC floppy and it will work as DD, just swap few wires

(it will work with XFS but NOT with crossdos in case you wished to read PC 720K floppys)
you need one diode for RDY, but its not really *essential*

[X-ray]

Are you sure the drive is dead? What I mean is, does the access light not come on at all, or does it light but not read any discs?
What have you tried to make sure it is dead?
And do you have another Amiga?

[MelfNeerg]

X-ray wrote:
Are you sure the drive is dead? What I mean is, does the access light not come on at all, or does it light but not read any discs?
What have you tried to make sure it is dead?
And do you have another Amiga?

Yep - the drive is dead. No access light, no clicks, no disk detection. I've plugged in a Chinon FZ-357 drive, but that just has the light on permanently, so no joy there either.

I have access to an A500 and A1200 which I could temporarily take the FDD out of - but I wanted to know if it would work first

Thanks for your replies so far

[orange]

permanently lit LED usually means the cable is oriented wrong, turn the connector 180 deg.

[MelfNeerg]

orange wrote:
permanently lit LED usually means the cable is oriented wrong, turn the connector 180 deg.

Yep. Tried that when it happened initially, but didnt work that way round either (and yes the jumpers were placed correctly), but thanks for the idea anyway.

This wasn't really a question about identifying a dead floppy drive - it was about whether using an A500/A1200 one in an A4000T would work...

But maybe no-one has ever tried that.

Failing that - does anyone have a floppy that they know does work in an A4000T?

[X-ray]

Yes, you can use your A500 drive in the A4000T. Do it like this:

1) Disconnect the floppy drive cable from the small PCB that is attached to the disks module. Remove that small PCB.
2) Plug the floppy cable directly to the header where the PCB was plugged previously.
3) Replace the A4000T drive with the A500 drive.

I can vouch that this works, because I recently did quite a few experiments with floppy drives and my A4000T and PC.

[orange]

I've used the same 'swap wires' system on A2000 and on AT A4000T and they both work flawlessly with PC floppies as DD without removing that PCB, still there are some jumpers on PCB, you should check them first

[Dr_Righteous]

Doesn't the A4kT use PC floppy drives (via an adapter)? Or is that just the A.T. model?

[MelfNeerg]

Dr_Righteous wrote:
Doesn't the A4kT use PC floppy drives (via an adapter)? Or is that just the A.T. model?

I have the Amiga Technologies/International version, so that might be the case. Maybe I should try connecting the Chinon FZ-357 drive I have with the jumpers set to their normal position (as per a PC drive) and see if that works.

Fortunately, one my mates has a broken A4kT (same model as mine) but his floppy is working, so I am borrowing that to get the job done in the meantime.

I will try out the PC drive thing and see what happens though - I will report back with my findings.

Thanks for all your replies and help.

[X-ray]

@ Dr Righteous

I have tried several standard PC floppy drives in my A4KT with the adapter PCB and none of them worked. I also tried the A4KT floppy in my PC and it didn't work. My guess is that there is something different about these drives: not standard Amiga floppies and not standard PC floppies. Kind of the worst of both worlds.