Figuring Things Out -- FF vs OOB Gotek -- Having Issues #675
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What does the Gotek display say after you insert the usb drive? |
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May I also ask what the display says when no usb stick is inserted. |
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I'm assuming to use the FF.CFG file, I have to first flash the FF firmware to the unit - I'm a bit reticent to do this on that particular unit, especially since it hasn't helped the one that was flashed and I don't have a spare unit of that model, or a way to flash back to the stock Gotek firmware. I can try the config file with an IMG file on the one that has been flashed however, and just leave the JC jumper off. On a related note, is the FF.CFG file read by the firmware directly? If so, how/when is this accomplished? On the unit with the FF firmware, the presence of the FF.CFG file made no difference in whether the drive was accessed or not after the initial plug-in. The FF.CFG file I used in my tests was the one from the example folder, with the only option being changed was 'interface = ibmpc'. All other options in the file were left as-is. The display on the LED model still showes '000' with no stick plugged in. The Non-Display models are SFR1M44-U units, and the Display model is a SFR1M44-U100 unit. |
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Oh I see. Well it's pretty hard to diagnose a unit with no display at all so I'll tap out on that I'm afraid. Maybe swap the FF board into the case with the display. It's possible that you would have to solder a header onto that FF board to attach the display though. But if you're lucky the factory will have soldered a header on already. |
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Yeah, the PCBs in the Non-Display units are missing the headers for the display and navigation buttons. I did notice that when I formatted the USB stick for a single 1.44MB drive, the program I used also created a file called 'Image A.cfg', but it's blank when I open it in notepad. I'm assuming the Gotek drives in general operate on a disk image setup, rather than accessing the drive directly? I guess that would make sense why I can't access the flash drive's full capacity natively. Is there no way to get the Gotek drives to do this? There's at least one company who's drives operate this way - though they may be the only one....it seems the Floppy to USB market is rather small...lol. I'll look into getting some pin headers and solder them to the FF-Flashed PCB - it may take a few days to get around to that though. Thanks again for taking the time to work with me on this. |
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FlashFloppy works on IMG files within a FAT32 formatted USB drive. That means:
To manage the IMG files on your Windows PC you will want a program like WinImage (shareware) or ImDisk (free). ImDisk is good because you can format a new IMG file and mount it as a drive letter on modern Windows! Below is an empty formatted 1.44MB IMG file to get you started. |
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After successfully flashing a Gotek Unit with the FF firmware yesterday, I still can't get it to access a USB drive, no matter what formatting I use. When I plug a stick in, it's internal LED will flash as it's spinning up, but after it goes quiet and I tell the Host to access the floppy drive, the Gotek's LED will flash for a few seconds, then go out - the USB stick's LED won't light up at all, so it's not even trying to access it as far as I can tell. I've tried several different formatting options for the drive, as well as dumping the FF.CFG file onto the stick as well, and I've also tried several different jumper configurations on the Gotek itself (S0, S1, or M0, as well as JC+ each of them).
Conversely, I can get a raw, out of the box Gotek unit (the other one I ordered) to read my USB stick, but ONLY if I format it to a 1.44MB disk - so the USB will ONLY show 1.44MB capacity. This seems highly illogical to me to do things this way, considering other options don't have this restriction/limitation.
As another comparison, the Richpeace units (configured for IBM-PC) we have in some boxes (Inficon IC-5 Deposition Controllers) here at work, while they won't read my USB sticks for some reason (PNY 16GB USB2.0 units), will read other sticks we've successfully backed up to - two are SanDisk Cruzer 64GB sticks and one is a Cruzer Mini 256MB stick, and the host box will read their full capacity. I'm also going to reach out to Richpeace and/or PLR here in the States (they sell/rebadge the Richpeace units) about this issue.
Back to the Gotek/FF issues though - is there any way to get the Gotek drives to read a USB stick without formatting down to 1.44MB? And why won't the module with the FF firmware access the stick at all?
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