Gotek with Amiga 2000 - Write errors

HxC Floppy Emulator on Amiga support
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AlexOughton
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2022 4:10 pm

Gotek with Amiga 2000 - Write errors

Post by AlexOughton »

Hello,

I am having trouble getting my Gotek with HxC working with an Amiga 2000. While I am able to read images just fine, writing is not working. I'm on Kickstart 1.3.2, so this doesn't seem to be related to the issue with 3.2 fixed in the other thread with the newer firmware. Whenever I try to format or copy a disk, verification fails. Using "Amiga Test Kit", I can pass read tests just fine, but writes will always fail.

I had previously tried to get this Gotek working with FlashFloppy (unsuccessfully) before deciding to try HxC to see if it would work any better. One thing I was able to see with F-F (which displays the current cylinder number on the display) is that extraneous STEP signals were being received by the drive during writes, and this was causing the wrong cylinder to be written. The drive would always be ahead of where it was supposed to be, and attempting to address a specific cylinder would be incorrect until issuing a TRK00 in order to reset the drive.

Doing some probing around on my Amiga motherboard, I found that STEP and WDATA appear to be tied together, and indeed I observe this when using the Test firmware with the Gotek. Toggling the STEP signal (using Amiga Test Kit) shows both TEST and WDATA are changing at the same time. This explains why the Gotek is STEP-ing with writes. I have done everything I can to trace these lines on the motherboard and I can't locate any short. It almost seems like this is "normal", although the fact I haven't seen anyone else report this suggests otherwise.

In any case, this motherboard works fine with "real" floppy drives. I can use either one or two drives on this floppy connector, and there are no problems at all. This unusual signalling "just works". Perhaps a real drive will ignore the STEP signal if WGATE is enabled? Is there something we could do with the HxC firmware to replicate this behavior?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you may have here.

Alex

AlexOughton
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2022 4:10 pm

Re: Gotek with Amiga 2000 - Write errors

Post by AlexOughton »

Just a small update: I tested my real drive's behavior by jumping pins on its interface. No, it does not ignore STEP when WGATE is asserted. So that's not it.

I remain utterly confused. I don't know why these lines seem to be shorted on my Amiga, and I don't know why my real drive doesn't seem to care. I certainly don't know what I can do to get the Gotek working!

Jeff
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Re: Gotek with Amiga 2000 - Write errors

Post by Jeff »

AlexOughton wrote:
Wed Oct 19, 2022 9:18 pm
Just a small update: I tested my real drive's behavior by jumping pins on its interface. No, it does not ignore STEP when WGATE is asserted. So that's not it.

I remain utterly confused. I don't know why these lines seem to be shorted on my Amiga, and I don't know why my real drive doesn't seem to care. I certainly don't know what I can do to get the Gotek working!
Have you tried this firmware ? :
viewtopic.php?p=24887#p24887

AlexOughton
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2022 4:10 pm

Re: Gotek with Amiga 2000 - Write errors

Post by AlexOughton »

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for getting back to me. Yes I tried that firmware and at the time it didn’t make a difference.

However, I’ve just solved this problem. I was right about there being a short on the Amiga board and I finally found it. It looks like there was something conductive stuck under the internal floppy connector. I had desoldered just the two problematic pins (pulling them all the way out of the plastic), and the short remained. As soon as I removed the entire connector the short went away. I’ve cleaned the area and soldered the connector back to the board and now all is well. Reading and writing are now both working as expected.

Thanks again,

Alex

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