Still bizarre floppy disk recognition issue persists

[orb85750]

I'm still pulling my hair out on this one.  Does anyone have a clue (before I'm completely bald)....

I have a cool 1200T system, but the floppy drive works fine only so long as the floppy disk is in when the system boots OS3.1 from the HDD.  However, if I remove that disk and put any other disk in the drive, I always get a DF0:? indicator (not a DF0: BAD indicator).  I think the ? means that the disk is not recognized as an Amiga-formatted disk, but I have no idea why that should be a problem, since every disk I put in is known to be a working Amiga disk.  Have you ever heard of such a problem?  Could it be some kind of configuration issue?

Thanks, -Dave

[KatManDEW]

That's a weird one. If you boot from a Workbench floppy, does DF0 work normally? If it does, then it's something in your configuration...

[Claw22000]

I was having a similar issue and when I took apart the amiga I notice the the cable had come loose.  I also notice that do to age the cable didn't fin snug anymore.  I replaced it with a PC floppy cable.  (Which you have to use the one without the twist.) After I did that the problems stopped.

[Ilwrath]

Problem is there are a lot of things it could be.

As stated, loose or bad cable would be my first guess.

Next I'd check the diskchange mechanism on the floppy drive.  See if manually sending a c:diskchange command clears the condition.  Also, what does the drive do when it's completely empty?  Does the icon disappear like it should, or does it stay as a DF0:

Could also be something completely stupid, though.  Have you tried a virus scanner?  There are a few viruses that will cause all your disks to become DF0:.  It's not uncommon to "rediscover" a 15 year old virus on Amiga...

[Ilwrath]

Ah!  I managed to post a duplicate when my original submission timed out.   :-P  Kindly disregard this fluke.

[LaPTuNa]

I just went through this w/ my a4000 hd floppy. It was the disk change switch at the front of the drive. I took the drive apart and used contact cleaner on both switches and it came back to life. No more df0: or df0:Unreadable. Resurrected my 1200 floppy almost the same way, but it was dirty contacts for the two read/write head connectors on the pcb. Came close w/ an a500 floppy as well, just to see if i could. It would recognize again, but its out of alignment. read errors. Hope this helps.

[Floid]

On HD drives, I'd assume the DD/HD switch (at the front of the drive, opposite the write-protect switch) could also be involved...  [Is the 3.1 disk HD while more 'classic' DD floppies come up all ?]

[orb85750]

Thanks everyone.  KatManDEW, your suggestion indicates that this *is* a software problem (I think).  

When I boot from my OS3.1 floppy instead of from the HDD, everything seems to work normally!  New disks are always recognized.  But if I boot from the HDD, only the disk that was in the floppy at that time is recognized later.  All others come up as DF0:?  

Given this new info, is there any obvious software configuration fix?  Or should I be content to boot from an OS3.1 floppy whenever I know I'll need to use the drive during a session?  (There are worse problems.)  

Thanks again,
-Dave

[Iggy_Drougge]

What happens if you unplug the HD and boot the Amiga without a floppy in the drive? Will it boot from a floppy upon insertion then?

To me it sounds as though someone has built in a PC floppy without undertaking the necessary conversion, so the Amiga doesn't receive the READY and DISKCHANGE signals it expects.

[terminator4]

Who or where sold you this drive?
its not converted properly as mentioned by someone else.
if you are looking for a replacement, then i can provide you one that's is properly working. :-D
and tested with my a1200!!!

[Floid]

Well, if every disk on earth can be read when booting from floppy, it sounds like a software issue!

Does the HDD install have some sort of "click fix" / floppy silencer installed?

[orb85750]

Iggy_Drougge wrote:
What happens if you unplug the HD and boot the Amiga without a floppy in the drive? Will it boot from a floppy upon insertion then?

To me it sounds as though someone has built in a PC floppy without undertaking the necessary conversion, so the Amiga doesn't receive the READY and DISKCHANGE signals it expects.

YES, I followed your instructions and it booted from the floppy fine once the screen asking for WB3.1 came up and I inserted it, but please note the following about this system, which may have something to do with my problem?

I always need to power up the system, then do a soft reboot (CTRL-Amiga-Amiga) in order to get anything to work.  Otherwise, I just get a blank screen (with or without the system HDD connected).  So the screen asking for WB3.1 came up only after a soft reboot following the initial power up.
I thought this was a common problem, because I read it somewhere else at some point, but I don't have a good understanding of it.

Thanks again, -Dave

[orb85750]

terminator4 wrote:
Who or where sold you this drive?
its not converted properly as mentioned by someone else.
if you are looking for a replacement, then i can provide you one that's is properly working. :-D
and tested with my a1200!!!

To be clear, I did not build this system myself.  Even worse, I purchased it from someone who knew very little about it.  The internal floppy drive is part of the system that I purchased.

[orb85750]

Floid wrote:
Well, if every disk on earth can be read when booting from floppy, it sounds like a software issue!

Does the HDD install have some sort of "click fix" / floppy silencer installed?

Well, I was not aware that such floppy click fixers even existed, so I'll have to say that I have no clue about how the HDD install is set up.  This is a toaster/flyer system with a broken toaster, by the way.  That's my next task to tackle!  Everything else seems to work pretty well.

[orb85750]

P.S.  I should also mention that I have had no success in getting my external amiga floppy drive to recognize any disk.  I always get the message DF1:?