HD Floppy Drive only detected as 880K on A4000

[Atron89]

Hi,
I have a problem with HD floppy drives on my A4000. I have tried two different HD drives, an FB-357A and a Chinon FZ-357A.

I use the format tool to see whether the floppy drive is detected as 880K or 1.76M drive. It always shows up as 880K drive. Any idea what I am missing here? Is there any kind of driver necessary or any version of libs etc. I can check? Is the workbench format tool the proper tool to check this? I also have a bunch of HD floppies of course.

I am using OS3.9 (with BB1-3 installed). Currently I have the FZ-357A drive connected as the only single floppy drive, it is jumpered as DF0, and J351 is open. The drive works fine, but only as 880K drive. Any ideas what's wrong here?

[A4000_Mad]

Hi,

I can only do a check myself and tell you what is says in the A4000 User's Guide........

Your computer system comes with 3.5" high capacity disk drive installed. You can use either high-density or standard double-density (880 KB storage capacity) floppy disks in this drive. The Amiga automatically recognizes which type of disk is inserted in the high capacity drive.

Regarding the jumper J351 the A4000 User's Guide says.....  

DF1: ENABLE (J351) enable 2nd internal floppy (880K) as DF1:   Setting = closed

DF1: ENABLE (J351) no 2nd internal floppy, or 1.76 MB floppy as DF1:  Setting = open

I have just checked with both a DD and a HD disk in an A4000 running OS3.9 and the Workbench format tool does indeed automatically adjust to the capacity of 1760K for the HD disk.

This probably won't solve your problem, but may be of some use hopefully

[pan1k]

And you are using a HD floppy disk right? *just checking*

[Atron89]

Hi,
I have just checked with both a DD and a HD disk in an A4000 running OS3.9 and the Workbench format tool does indeed automatically adjust to the capacity of 1760K for the HD disk.
This probably won't solve your problem, but may be of some use hopefully

Thanks, this helps. This means using the format tool allows to check. Hence, there is indeed something wrong.
Can you unmount df0 and mount it again?
E.g.: "assign df0: dismount", followed by "mount df0:" - should this work?
On my system I get the error message "Can't open file 'DEVS:MountList'". Since Kick 2.0x there is no mountlist anymore but separate files in devs/dosdrivers. Is there anything specific about floppy drives in devs/dosdrivers or L with OS3.9?

[fitzsteve]

I think you might need one of those floppy cables with a twist in it, was something on Amibay about it, anyway hope the info helps you get to the bottom of it

Steve.

[Atron89]

I think you might need one of those floppy cables with a twist in it, was something on Amibay about it, anyway hope the info helps you get to the bottom of it
Steve.

Thanks for the hint, but the cable is fine. It has the correct twist.

Meanwhile, I got it working, just formatted a HD disk and it shows up as 1760K drive now.
Thanks for the help guys (A4000 Mad, pan1k, fitzsteve) :-)

The aspect I wasn't aware of is that the drive is configured as a 880K drive during boot, and shows up as 880K drive in the format tool (right after boot). But only after a HD floppy has been inserted it switches to 1760K mode (which can be observed live in the format tool). After that it remains in 1760K mode. I had thought it to be the other way round.

Secondly, the drive is not always performing the mode switch, sometimes it fails to do so, and this probably fooled me sometimes.