27 replies to this topic

[telengard]

Just got mine the other day. After much time fiddling with it I think I have it setup such that it works (sorta).
I've only been able to write Amiga adf images so far successfully. There are options for Atari 8 bit disks. The one
I'm interested in was the 810 90k one. I figured this was atr format. Seems to only be xfd. I was able to write
a few successfully but I get boot error when trying to use them. Writing C64 images hangs the Imagetool program.

I'm running the latest drivers/imagetool on XP w/ all the latest updates.

Any one else using this for writing atr images etc? Maybe a better question is, can atr images be used for this purpose
or are they purely emulator/SIO2PC?

I'm hoping I don't have an expensive PCI based paperweight.

I've had it for tonight fiddling with it. Tomorrow I'm going to try the Atari ST stuff. Hopefully I'll have better luck with
that.

~telengard

[ijor]

Give me a few days and I will sent you beta software for writing back both ATR and ST images. Do you have original copy-protected disks?

What kind of 5.25 drive do you have in the PC? If it is 80 tracks (1.2 MB) then you must use virgin unformatted DD disks, or you won't be able to read them on an Atari drive.

[telengard]

ijor, on Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:48 AM, said:

Give me a few days and I will sent you beta software for writing back both ATR and ST images. Do you have original copy-protected disks?

What kind of 5.25 drive do you have in the PC? If it is 80 tracks (1.2 MB) then you must use virgin unformatted DD disks, or you won't be able to read them on an Atari drive.

I do have some original copy protected disks but not many, only of games that are of collector value to me. I'm not so much of a purist so crack screens/menus don't bug me. I mostly was just looking to write ATRs and .ST/.MSA to disk and use them on my systems. I was using a virgin disk but I didn't realize that was necessary. I don't need a virgin one for *each* time I write to it I hope.

Would a different drive be better suited to this and still work with the other 5.25 based systems supported (C64, TI99, etc)? All I have now are 1.2M but I don't mind picking up a different one (360k?).

Thanks for the info!

~telengard

Edited by telengard, Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:58 PM.

[remowilliams]

I've got one, which probably doesn't surprise you that much. I hate to say it, but it is (for me) largely a finely crafted paperweight until some talented people write more drivers/utilities for it. I write my ATRs through APE/SIO2USB and my ST/MSA stuff through ppera's excellent PC floppy driver/utility prog.

ijor, on Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:48 AM, said:

Give me a few days and I will sent you beta software for writing back both ATR and ST images. Do you have original copy-protected disks?

Ah, there's the floppy wizard I was waiting to see a post from.

Now if I could just write those STX and ATX images.

Edited by remowilliams, Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:13 PM.

[ijor]

telengard, on Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:57 PM, said:

I do have some original copy protected disks but not many, only of games that are of collector value to me. I'm not so much of a purist so crack screens/menus don't bug me.

I was asking for the purpose of getting an image. If you have something rare, let me know by PM.

Quote

I was using a virgin disk but I didn't realize that was necessary. I don't need a virgin one for *each* time I write to it I hope.

You don't as long as you don't ever write to it on the Atari (or any other 360K drive for that matter), and as long as in the PC you write it only with this type of software. Note that brand new is not enough, it must be unformatted. If it comes factory preformatted it won't work.

So if you want to transfer files back from the Atari to the PC you need to use a different disk (or use a completely different method).

Quote

Would a different drive be better suited to this and still work with the other 5.25 based systems supported (C64, TI99, etc)? All I have now are 1.2M but I don't mind picking up a different one (360k?).

A 360K drive would be better. You won't need to use virgin disks, it will be more reliably, and you will probably be able to read the flippy side (most 360K drives can access the flippy side, most HD drives cannot).

[ijor]

remowilliams, on Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:12 AM, said:

Now if I could just write those STX and ATX images.

Well, last time you told me you couldn't find your MK4 Did you find it?

[telengard]

remowilliams, on Thu Jul 26, 2007 1:12 AM, said:

I've got one, which probably doesn't surprise you that much. I hate to say it, but it is (for me) largely a finely crafted paperweight until some talented people write more drivers/utilities for it. I write my ATRs through APE/SIO2USB and my ST/MSA stuff through ppera's excellent PC floppy driver/utility prog.

ijor, on Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:48 AM, said:

Give me a few days and I will sent you beta software for writing back both ATR and ST images. Do you have original copy-protected disks?

Ah, there's the floppy wizard I was waiting to see a post from.

Now if I could just write those STX and ATX images.

WHOA. I am floored. You have a catweasel?

I have been exchanging emails w/ Jens, mostly troubleshooting a driver issue. Turns out the PCI contacts were dirty (always fun troubleshooting stuff like that... NOT).
He said there is a new release being done this weekend with more developer information. I asked about getting the source to imagetool but sounds like he's not ready for that yet.

I have used ppera's tool and it does work, but it only seemed to support a very specific .st file size if I remember correctly (it's been a long while). The SVD or HxC were/are the things I was really counting on but even those won't give me the one-device-does-everything I'm looking for, mostly due to the 1541. Dang CBM!

Got my TI99/4A CF device today too, gonna fiddle with that tonight. Lots of neat gadgets, yay.

~telengard

[telengard]

ijor, on Thu Jul 26, 2007 1:36 AM, said:

telengard, on Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:57 PM, said:

I do have some original copy protected disks but not many, only of games that are of collector value to me. I'm not so much of a purist so crack screens/menus don't bug me.

I was asking for the purpose of getting an image. If you have something rare, let me know by PM.

Quote

I was using a virgin disk but I didn't realize that was necessary. I don't need a virgin one for *each* time I write to it I hope.

You don't as long as you don't ever write to it on the Atari (or any other 360K drive for that matter), and as long as in the PC you write it only with this type of software. Note that brand new is not enough, it must be unformatted. If it comes factory preformatted it won't work.

So if you want to transfer files back from the Atari to the PC you need to use a different disk (or use a completely different method).

Quote

Would a different drive be better suited to this and still work with the other 5.25 based systems supported (C64, TI99, etc)? All I have now are 1.2M but I don't mind picking up a different one (360k?).

A 360K drive would be better. You won't need to use virgin disks, it will be more reliably, and you will probably be able to read the flippy side (most 360K drives can access the flippy side, most HD drives cannot).

Hi ijor,

I don't think I have anything that rare, pretty common stuff but things I wanted to own. I'll PM you what I have both 8 bit and 16 bit. If there's any of it that you'd like me to image I'd be more than happy to do that.

I'm going to pick up a 360k drive. Thanks for the tip! It's very possible that disk was pre-formatted. I didn't check.

~telengard

[Larry]

Yep! Got one a couple of years ago for the VAPI project. It currently sets quietly waiting in a retro-PC that I set up at the same time.
-Larry

telengard, on Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:25 AM, said:

Just got mine the other day. After much time fiddling with it I think I have it setup such that it works (sorta).
I've only been able to write Amiga adf images so far successfully. There are options for Atari 8 bit disks. The one
I'm interested in was the 810 90k one. I figured this was atr format. Seems to only be xfd. I was able to write
a few successfully but I get boot error when trying to use them. Writing C64 images hangs the Imagetool program.

I'm running the latest drivers/imagetool on XP w/ all the latest updates.

Any one else using this for writing atr images etc? Maybe a better question is, can atr images be used for this purpose
or are they purely emulator/SIO2PC?

I'm hoping I don't have an expensive PCI based paperweight.

I've had it for tonight fiddling with it. Tomorrow I'm going to try the Atari ST stuff. Hopefully I'll have better luck with
that.

~telengard

[telengard]

Finally got my hands on a 360k drive (eBay) as all I had were a bunch of 1.2M drives. Drive seems to access correctly, i.e. the light comes on when accessed etc but I always get "not ready" in Windows XP, 98, and DOS. Catweasel doesn't even see it.

There do not seem to be any jumpers on this thing either. There are places where I could solder a resistor to change values though from what I can tell. Does this have something to do w/ the READY signal possibly (pin 34)?
I've tried a few different cables too so I doubt it's that.

One of you drive gurus must know what's going on.

The drive is a TEAC FD-55BV-75 if that's any help. Very little on it on the web but I did find a bunch of PDFs concerning the FD-55 series in general.

~telengard

[ijor]

telengard, on Sun Aug 5, 2007 11:40 PM, said:

Finally got my hands on a 360k drive (eBay) as all I had were a bunch of 1.2M drives. Drive seems to access correctly, i.e. the light comes on when accessed etc but I always get "not ready" in Windows XP, 98, and DOS. Catweasel doesn't even see it.

Test things one at a time.

Test the drive "alone" in the first place. Connect it directly to the motherboard. Configure the drive type in your BIOS. Format a DOS disk (must be DD and not HD). Note that some newer board support a single drive.

Then connect it through the Catweasel. Uninstall Catweasel drivers. Test it again as above. Some people have sporadic errors here, especially with two drives (probably an impedance issue).

Only as the last step try the Catweasel software.

[telengard]

ijor, on Tue Aug 7, 2007 12:59 AM, said:

telengard, on Sun Aug 5, 2007 11:40 PM, said:

Finally got my hands on a 360k drive (eBay) as all I had were a bunch of 1.2M drives. Drive seems to access correctly, i.e. the light comes on when accessed etc but I always get "not ready" in Windows XP, 98, and DOS. Catweasel doesn't even see it.

Test things one at a time.

Test the drive "alone" in the first place. Connect it directly to the motherboard. Configure the drive type in your BIOS. Format a DOS disk (must be DD and not HD). Note that some newer board support a single drive.

Then connect it through the Catweasel. Uninstall Catweasel drivers. Test it again as above. Some people have sporadic errors here, especially with two drives (probably an impedance issue).

Only as the last step try the Catweasel software.

Hi Ijor,

Thanks for the ideas. I'm actually spending most time doing what you described. Can't format a DD disk in Dos, Win98, or XP. It's configured correctly in BIOS and the drive is accessed, it just always says "not ready".

Once I do get it working I'll try out the catweasel again. That was the first thing I tried and I started working backwards from there as you described.

~telengard

[remowilliams]

telengard, on Tue Aug 7, 2007 1:34 AM, said:

Can't format a DD disk in Dos, Win98, or XP. It's configured correctly in BIOS and the drive is accessed, it just always says "not ready".

I had the exact same problem in a *bunch* of machines when I hooked my stock NOS IBM 5.25" 360K drive up. Every machine that recognized it would not be able to actually use it. I eventually wound up using a Compaq 486 class Deskpro machine that was able to use the drive properly. Didn't ever try it with the Catweasel though.

[ijor]

telengard, on Tue Aug 7, 2007 12:34 AM, said:

Thanks for the ideas. I'm actually spending most time doing what you described. Can't format a DD disk in Dos, Win98, or XP. It's configured correctly in BIOS and the drive is accessed, it just always says "not ready".

It is possibly then that the drive is bad. You could still try a few things.

Give the drive a good "clean-up". I'm not sure you would get "not ready" error if that is the problem, but I would try.

Try accessing the drive physically outside the PC. You should be able to check then if the drive rotates, if the heads move, etc.

I'm afraid it probably won't help. If the Catweasel doesn't see it at all, it is probably because the drive never activates the track zero signal (for whatever reasons). And because you have similar problems when accessing the drive directly, chances that the drive is just not working.

[telengard]

ijor, on Tue Aug 7, 2007 2:09 AM, said:

telengard, on Tue Aug 7, 2007 12:34 AM, said:

Thanks for the ideas. I'm actually spending most time doing what you described. Can't format a DD disk in Dos, Win98, or XP. It's configured correctly in BIOS and the drive is accessed, it just always says "not ready".

It is possibly then that the drive is bad. You could still try a few things.

Give the drive a good "clean-up". I'm not sure you would get "not ready" error if that is the problem, but I would try.

Try accessing the drive physically outside the PC. You should be able to check then if the drive rotates, if the heads move, etc.

I'm afraid it probably won't help. If the Catweasel doesn't see it at all, it is probably because the drive never activates the track zero signal (for whatever reasons). And because you have similar problems when accessing the drive directly, chances that the drive is just not working.

I was afraid it would be bad. I did give it a good cleaning and blew out all the dust etc. The drive rotates, haven't checked the heads. I did notice that it's current settings (via resistors) is for XT. Shouldn't that be AT? The AT is newer right?? I wasn't a PC guy back then so I have no idea. I wonder if that would help at all. I am going to pick up another 360k drive just in case this one is bad.

Thanks guys for all the help!

~telengard

[ijor]

telengard, on Tue Aug 7, 2007 8:20 PM, said:

I did give it a good cleaning and blew out all the dust etc.

Cleaning the dust is not enough. You might need some cleaner for the heads. But again, I doubt you would get "drive not ready" if that was the problem (you would get read or write errors).

Quote

I did notice that it's current settings (via resistors) is for XT. Shouldn't that be AT?

What do you mean? Do you have a jumper labeled XT-AT? Most 360K drives don't have an XT-AT setting.

As remowilliams commented, some computers might have troubles with a 360K drive. It might be the BIOS, or conceivable the FDC. But whatever incompatibility the machine could have, this shouldn't affect the Catweasel. The Catweasel doesn't depend on any software or hardware support from the computer, it can work even with legacy-free computers that don't support floppy at all.

So unless you have two separate problems (the Catweasel is failing for some reason, and the PC for other), then it seems the drive is bad.

[telengard]

ijor, on Wed Aug 8, 2007 12:07 AM, said:

telengard, on Tue Aug 7, 2007 8:20 PM, said:

I did give it a good cleaning and blew out all the dust etc.

Cleaning the dust is not enough. You might need some cleaner for the heads. But again, I doubt you would get "drive not ready" if that was the problem (you would get read or write errors).

Quote

I did notice that it's current settings (via resistors) is for XT. Shouldn't that be AT?

What do you mean? Do you have a jumper labeled XT-AT? Most 360K drives don't have an XT-AT setting.

As remowilliams commented, some computers might have troubles with a 360K drive. It might be the BIOS, or conceivable the FDC. But whatever incompatibility the machine could have, this shouldn't affect the Catweasel. The Catweasel doesn't depend on any software or hardware support from the computer, it can work even with legacy-free computers that don't support floppy at all.

So unless you have two separate problems (the Catweasel is failing for some reason, and the PC for other), then it seems the drive is bad.

Yeah, one of the "straps" seems to be called "XT" (not set via resistor). From what I can tell, straps are like jumper settings only there is no header to short. It's right next to "DCRY". Haven't found much on it yet other than this, weirdly enough, Atari page.

http://translate.goo...l=e...=off&sa=G

Not much info on usenet either but this post is probably where I read about the READY signal and XT/AT. It was late and I was doing a LOT of research/reading so I probably started combining info from different sources together. Note to self, don't do this stuff late @ night.

http://groups.google...d74db475ee6ff00

Your point above makes a lot of sense though. I know the Catweasel works w/ 5.25 drives because it worked fine w/ my 1.2M drive. The reason I bought the 360k one was to get around the info you mentioned about pristine (unformatted) disks.

I'm gonna pick up another one to see if I have any more luck.

~telengard

[ijor]

telengard, on Wed Aug 8, 2007 12:33 AM, said:

Yeah, one of the "straps" seems to be called "XT" (not set via resistor). From what I can tell, straps are like jumper settings only there is no header to short. It's right next to "DCRY". Haven't found much on it yet other than this, weirdly enough, Atari page.
...
Not much info on usenet either but this post is probably where I read about the READY signal and XT/AT.

It shouldn't matter. As long as the drive is configured correctly as 360K on the BIOS, the system should ignore the ChangeLine (pin 34) signal. And if BIOS is not configured correctly, then the "wrong" signal on this pin should give a different error (no media in drive).

Conceivable the problem might be the other way around. The drive is configured as AT, and the system considers it is an XT drive. The system then expects a Ready signal on pin 34, but the drive doesn't activate that signal. I checked and XP doesn't behave like that (it just ignores the state of pin 34). Conceivable, some wierd BIOS (and then plain DOS) might show this problem.

And again, that shouldn't affect the Catweasel. Everything suggests that the drive is never signaling track0.

[ijor]

Btw, you could try moving the head manually.

Turn off the computer, move the head inwards. Then check if the computer is being able to step out the head. Note that some drives do that automatically on powerup, but usually only HD drives do that.

Then the other way around. Move the head manually to the outermost position. See if this produces any change.

You might also use a multimeter to check if the track0 signal is being activated or not.

Conceivable, moving the head manually might even fix the problem if it is "stuck".

[re-atari]

telengard, on Wed Aug 8, 2007 7:33 AM, said:

Yeah, one of the "straps" seems to be called "XT" (not set via resistor). From what I can tell, straps are like jumper settings only there is no header to short. It's right next to "DCRY". Haven't found much on it yet other than this, weirdly enough, Atari page.

Maybe these doc's can be of assistance. I can't remember when and where I found them, but most likely they're from Teac's website. The doc about the FD-55FR & FV will tell you the jumpers' functions, the 2 doc's about the FD-55GFR will tell you in more detail what the functions do in practice.

 Teac_FD_55FR___FV_Jumpers.txt   5.02K   192 downloads
 Teac_FD_55GFR_Jumpers.txt   891bytes   155 downloads
 Teac_FD_55GFR_149U_Jumpers.txt   2.78K   169 downloads

Hope this helps.

re-atari

[djpubba]

I recently bought a MK4 for reading and writing Amiga and C64 disks. I managed to get Amiga disks working, but I'm having trouble with C64 disks. I have tried with two 5.25" floppy drives and they both behave the same way. I can read C64 disks fine, but when I try to write a disk, the drive does nothing at all. It doesn't start spinning, no activity light, no nothing. Not even an error message from Imagetool. It will just sit there forever.

The drives seems to work under straight DOS. I can write files to a disk with DOS to a PC format disk.

The drives are Teac FD-55GFR. I'm using the Catweasel drivers CWMK4020407, which are the only ones that seem to work with Amiga disks (along with the "hotfix" imagetool). I've got the 5.25" drive set as drive B and the 3.5" drive as drive A. I've tried making the 5.25" be drive A on the cable alone. I've tried without the passthrough. I've tried disabling the drives in the PC's bios. None of this seems to make any difference. I can read but not write in all cases.

Is this problem familiar to anyone? I emailed Jens, but I'm sure he's busy since I haven't gotten a reply in more than a week.

[ND4SPD]

I have a Catweasel MK4, but I can't seem to get it to work in my PC. It works just fine in my wife's old P4 Dell, but my 975X motherboard doesn't see it. Any ideas anyone?

[Curt Vendel]

I have the much early ISA version, I was able to copy a few C64 disks and some Apple disks, but I had hoped for Amiga access and proper ST access.

There are some incredible new ST disk and HD reading programs now which I've used to copy a considerable amount of materials, I still have a lot of Amiga stuff I'd love to move over to my PC however without having to resort to the Amiga serial connection system, but to find a way to read Amiga disks onto my PC either with the Catweasel or through some kind of other interface allowing an Amiga disk drive to connect to a PC or the like.



Curt

remowilliams, on Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:12 AM, said:

I've got one, which probably doesn't surprise you that much. I hate to say it, but it is (for me) largely a finely crafted paperweight until some talented people write more drivers/utilities for it. I write my ATRs through APE/SIO2USB and my ST/MSA stuff through ppera's excellent PC floppy driver/utility prog.

ijor, on Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:48 AM, said:

Give me a few days and I will sent you beta software for writing back both ATR and ST images. Do you have original copy-protected disks?

Ah, there's the floppy wizard I was waiting to see a post from.

Now if I could just write those STX and ATX images.

[remowilliams]

ND4SPD, on Mon Dec 31, 2007 2:14 PM, said:

I have a Catweasel MK4, but I can't seem to get it to work in my PC. It works just fine in my wife's old P4 Dell, but my 975X motherboard doesn't see it. Any ideas anyone?

One thing that I've noticed about the MK4 is that is a very neat, and often very maddening device to get working properly. Case in point - I have mine setup in an old P3/866 with ijors custom CW drivers to read ST disks and it works fine, so I know the hardware is OK. Then I tried to use JS's drivers and software and it just refuses to work properly.

Does it not see the MKIV at all in device manager? If so, you may never be able to get it to work at all in that computer.

Curt Vendel, on Tue Jan 1, 2008 4:17 PM, said:

but to find a way to read Amiga disks onto my PC either with the Catweasel or through some kind of other interface allowing an Amiga disk drive to connect to a PC or the like.

I know the MKIV can read/write Amiga floppies. If you can get it to work of course. It's not quite clear but the wording on JS's site seems to indicate that the same driver set can be used for the ISA/MK3/MK4 so maybe imagetool can do it as well on the ISA version?

There is also the fdrawcmd/adfread combo for using stock PC hardware as well, but I've personally never tried it.

[djpubba]

In my case it turned out I wasn't using the latest software. The software on the support area of ami.ga is not the most current version. The most current version is found on the news section.

After discovering and switching to that, I can now read and write both Amiga and C64 disks, which was my main goal. However, I have been unable to read/write Atari 8bit or Apple ][ disks, which is disappointing. I haven't tried any other formats yet, but I plan to test TI 99/4a and Tandy CoCo soon.