A1200 Floppy Drive Problem

[Dr_Righteous]

I thought, before resorting to anything drastic, I would see if anyone else has experienced this problem....

I bought an A1200 board off Ebay, and as stated there seems to be some sort of problem with the floppy controller.

I finally got KS3.1 ROMs for it today, plugged them in and get the beloved "insert disk" screen. I cannibalized a friend's A500 for the power supply and floppy drive. The drive powers up and does it's initial spin. With the cable backwards, the drive spins constantly, so some signal is making it through the cable. Alas, (with the cable on correctly, of course) the system never attempts to read my WB disk, and sits waiting for a disk.

So, my question is, is there something else I can try before I resort to replacing Paula?

[shIva]

afaik the last a1200 models had 1.44 mb pc drives included, which were used for 880k dd.

the problem might be, that the older special amiga drives can´t work with that kind of controller.

just try connecting a cheap pc diskdrive (no you can´t destroy anything with this)

[Linchpin]

Is it an Escom or CBM Amiga? There is a small board that plugs onto the mobo of the escom a1200 and then onto a standard PC FDD. Maybe either that being there / not being there is causing issues :-)

[peroxidechicken]

That small board allowing you to use a PC floppy wouldn't be a kywalda would it?  When my Amigas floppy finally goes, I'll be getting one of these.  

 Also known as kylwalda and a bit cheaper in other parts of the world.  

[Dr_Righteous]

Duh, I guess I should have mentioned... It's a C= rev. 1D1...

I still need to load a hard drive with WB to see if audio works at all.

[rubjonny]

On newer A1200s you can use PC floppies by simply rewiring your floppy cable (I believe it will only work on A1200 models that were fitted with PC floppy disks)

I can't remember the exact wiring you have to use, but its a case of swaping 3-4 pins and it will work

I have a cable I made up and the diagram somewhere, I'll dig it out if peeps are interested...

[Linchpin]

@rubjonny

indeed please.

would make life easier.

mines an escom a1200 with pana drive :-)

[kgrach]

take the board out of the case and shield.
flip it over.
On the bottom of the board look at the floppy connector. If it has a wire jumping any of the pins it needs a standard PC floppy drive. Escom on some of the French made ones cut the disk ready line, and then used a wire to jump the disk change signal. They then added a delay in 3.1 ROMSs for the floppy to spin up to speed because the Amiga no longer knows if this is the case.
This is why some games broke with certain Escom A1200s because they were waiting for the drive ready signal that will never come.

oh! one more thing if you use a standard PC floppy drive don't put any high density disk in it. The drive will switch to high density mode and the Amiga will freak.

 shameless plug section
I have some NOS ( New Old Stock ) A1200 floppy drives for $25.00
I know they are expensive sorry. But they do carry a 120 day warranty.

[rubjonny]

This looks like the one, I can't find the cable I made anywhere, when I find it I'll let u all know.

http://www.inet.hr/~dkuticic/hard01.htm