Since yesterday I’ve been making a backup of my NAS box that contains all the scans. I got a Synology 214SE in January with 2 2TB drives configured as RAID 1 / Mirror. These days the total amount of free space is around 200Gigs. I bought 2 3TB’s for this upgrade and while the backup takes time I can’t work with scans.
So while I’m taking a backup I might as well make a nice little post.
I’ve previously had some issues in adding a GOTEK drive into my external drive enclosures for the Amiga. So I’ve had this project shelved. Today I took one of the other enclosures and tried that. Yes this one works.
For you who don’t know what a GOTEK drive is, I’ll make a short explanation of it. It’s a floppy to usb emulator. You can use a USB drive and attach it to this device which is then plugged to the floppy controller of the computer, sewing machine, keyboard etc.
Hervé Messinger made a guide and a firmware so it can be used in the Amiga. See his project site: http://cortexamigafloppydrive.wordpress.com In the current firmware (1.05) there are some qirks that still needs fixing, i.e. cannot format a disk, nor use track copy applications like X-Copy.
The GOTEK drive can be aquired for around $19 on eBay (price update 2015-02-21).
After replacing the floppy drive with the GOTEK I noticed how dirty the enclosure was.
Foamclean to the rescue. The pictures will speak for themselves.
For all support about the GOTEK drive please ask in Hervé’s site.
If you live in Denmark, I can assist in flashing the firmware if required, but I’d suggest that you learn to do that, so you can upgrade the drive when a new firmware comes out.
No it really isn’t that hard flashing this yourself.
And a word of caution. Remember that Hervé was the one who created this firmware. He get’s nothing from any of the guys selling these drives preflashed with the Amiga firmware.
Should any external housing work? I dismantled a werking external drive and connected the gotek but it does not seem to work. Connecting the gotek internally does work. How do I know that the floppy drive flat cable is connected properly?
Any external floppy housings should work. But do keep in mind that for some of the drives the jumper on the GOTEK must be set to DS0 and some must be set to DS1, just try it out.
I’ve noticed that some external enclosures have 2 connectors, one of them where pin 1 is to the left and one where pin 1 is to the right, just make sure the red wire is connected to pin 1 on the GOTEK.
If you have one of these first connect the cable to the GOTEK drive, then find the right connector on the PCB.
Pin 1 is the left side seen on this pic, and the jumper, just above the floppe connector, is set as DS1, move it one step to the left and it’ll be DS0:
I think the reason for the 2 connectors on the ones I’ve seen, is that it makes it possible to use different drives, there is no standard in which side pin 1 is supposed to be at.
Well if you only have one connector for the flat cable, pin 1 is to the left in the above mentioned picture.
I hope this helps.