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Gotek newbe troubles

K

KLund1

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 22, 2012
Messages
577
Location
Livermore, CA
I have a gotek. I understand what it is and how it works, but in actually making it work I always have trouble. I have never gotten this to work. I'm asking for some help here.
I want to use it as a boot drive for a 486 machine. I connected it to the twisted end of the fd cable. I set the 486 BIOS to A drive 1.44Mb. Put the shown files on an empty FAT32 USB stick. Boot the machine. After a few seconds the gotek beeps twice. and the machine then goes into end endless loop to reboots. Without the gotek attached I can see the ram count up on the screen. When the gotek is connected I do not see the ram count up. Please see the pictures of the unit and jumpers. I can see the files on the gotek little screen. I can scroll through the files. But I do not know if a file is 'loaded' or not. The rotary knob has it's push button that I am not sure what it used for.
The files I am using are recovery disks, so I'm assuming the first disk is bootable, but I am not sure.
Everyone else seems to use these without any issues at all. I look at videos, and they seem to skip important steps, or go through 2, 3, or 4 program downloads, and installs, and then a lot of file manipulations before using the gotek. It can't be that hard.
Also I am not sure about where to get "correct" image files. The ones I show here I got from archive.org. I am looking to boot DOS 3.2 or 6.22 from FD then install DOS onto HD's and then be able to transfer other FD other software. Oh, the 486 is know to work great with a regular 1.44 fd drive.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
 

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You push the knob to load the image... Make sure its loaded before it tries to boot, otherwise you will have to reboot. Personally the image I need to boot I rename to start with 1 so its first on the list.
 
If you're not even seeing the RAM count up on the attached machine something is pretty badly wrong. Are you sure you don't have the floppy cable plugged in upside down or another similar problem?
 
Thanks for such a quick reply. Most appreciated.
When I power the system on I only have a few seconds to find the correct file and load it? oh, I see that it remembers the last file loaded(?)
When I press the knob button it says ejected. If I press again I see T:00.0
Well Now... While messing with the FD cable, the video cable was loose so that it why I could not see the ram count up.
Now I can.
When I boot that first file I get a no OS message. I found a 6.22.img file I have, and I loaded that (i think) and I get no OS msg. I went back to archive.org and get a 6.22 disk image and that gives the same msg.
But a good thing, I hear a few clicks from the gotek as the system tries to access the gotek.
Suggestions?
 
Can you open it up? Where are those cables going? They should be jumpers to select drive assignment never seen cables like those
 
Also what does the display say when it gets power? Are you running flash floppy or the gotek’s default firmware?
 
Ok flash floppy is good. I see there is a speaker in there and the other wires go to the pot to select the image file. Looks like it also has a jumper for ds0 which is good should detect as drive A. What does your flash floppy config looks like? Can you upload your config file from your usb drive so we can see what settings are defined?
 
KLund1,
I connected it (GOTEK) to the twisted end of the fd cable.
Click to expand...
This is after the twisted conductors 10 thru 16, so your GOTEK has to be Strapped
as DS1 in a DS{0..3) configuration or DS2 in a DS{1..4} configuration.

Try that and it should boot properly as A: Drive.

Larry
 
mbliss11. What config file on the USB? I just have the .img files.
This is the the kind of thing that is not in any of the videos I watched. These small but important things.
ldkraemer, The gotek is connected to the untwisted cable now and shows on the MB bios screen as drive A, 1.44mb. If I connect it to the twisted cable it shows as drive B in the bios, but as a 1.2Mb drive.
 
KLund1,
If it is connected after the Twists in conductors 10 thru 16, can't you select a 1.44 Drive
in the Bios to match the hardware? If you plugged in a 360K floppy drive after the
twisted conductors you can select the Bios to be a 360K floppy drive to match the hardware.

LK
 
The disk image I want to use is a 1.44mb file. So I would think I want drive A to be 1.44mb in the MB bios.
But what about this new config file I need on the USB stick. Would not that have somethign to do with how the Gotek talks to the MB?
 
Wow thanks for the files!
Done as directed. ff.cfg in USB stick root directory.
NO joy. none of my dos .img files will boot. I do not know if they are good or not.
Still not sure if a .img file is loaded. I select a dos 6.22 .img withe the rotary dial button wait a second and it then shows T:00.0. If I press the rotary button it shows 'ejected' I press it again and it shows T:00.0 so that means the .img file is loaded?
The MB shows 1.44 as Drive A on the straight through ribbon cable.
 
Klund1,
Here you are. A photo of the Floppy Twisted Conductor wiring. Now you can figure out
the problem.


LK
 

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Thanks,
I fully understand about real FD cabling. Its cabling with this gotek that is them problem. Am I missing a jumper, or is there something I need to set in new cfg file I did not know I needed?
This gotek drive on what normally would be B drive, but the MB recognizes it as 1.44mb A drive on the straight through cable. If I connect it to the twisted cable it shows in the bios as B 1.2mb drive at power up with no intervention from me.
 
The MB shows 1.44 as Drive A on the straight through ribbon cable. I select a dos 6.22 .img with
the rotary dial button wait a second and it then shows T:00.0. If I press the rotary button it shows
'ejected', I press it again and it shows T:00.0 so that means the .img file is loaded into the
GOTEK.
Click to expand...
If you think of the GOTEK as a file cabinet full of boot floppy's, and you select the one
you want to boot, the next step is to actually do the boot process. A CNTL-ALT-DEL,
or hit the reset Button should boot that selected image. Does it actually Boot properly?

LK
 
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So to be simple

You look like you have one jumper on the Gotek on S0 ?, should be S1 for normal PC drive letters & connection
Gotek attached after the twist to select as drive A:
Set it in BIOS drive A as 1.44 3.5"
Flash Floppy installed and image selected
With drive seek at boot set in BIOS, to you see it step from track 0 to 80 and back ?

If all that is ok, then its your image or you FF.CFG file.

if in FF.CFG

interface = jc then as I remember, jumper JC should also be closed.
 
Last edited:
Yea his config is set for JC I think that is standard and looking at the pic of his board JC is open on the board so it is operating in shugart mode. Looks like a jumper is needed in JC and the jumper needs to be moved to S1 instead of S0. I have literally only ever used flash floppy in one PC everything else has been in other platforms where S0 is required (amiga, cpc, etc.).
 
Thanks everyone for the discussion, help and advice!
I moved the jumper over to S1, switched to the twisted cable and the BIOS shows A as a 1.44mb drive. It is set up in the PC normal configuration now.
When booting I can see the T:00.0 very quickly show some numbers on MB initialization. But sadly, still none of the DOS 6.22 .img files will boot. I see the T:00.0 flash some numbers again quickly as the MB accesses the disk looking for a boot sector.
As noted before I do not know if the .img files I have are 'good'. Is there a repsoitory somewhere that has known bootable .img files?
 
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