HxC floppy emulator

[alanh]

Just curious what the success rate has been with these on a Jr. I only have the PIC18 based SD card version. But I have not been able to get any image to boot - either 720K or 360K. I've tried 300 and 360 rpm for both with the standard 9 spt, 2 heads, 250 Kbps, and 40/80 tracks for 5.25/3.5 respectively. All produce 'ERROR' after the menu finishes.

[jscrow]

I've have two USB GoTek emulators flashed with HxC and both work/boot just fine on the jr. They read/write 360K and 720K images with no issues.

[MattCarp]

That's pretty cool. Which model? Can you post a link?

[jscrow]

The USB Gotek drives are on Amazon for about $25, instructions to flash the HxC firmware is here:

http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/index.html

[JudgeMonroe]

I must be doing something wrong, but I can't tell what it is.

I have a Gotek flashed with HxC. It only works on the "B" ribbon position (pre-twist); but then "works" is an open question, since I can only boot 180K disk images (e.g., PC DOS 2.1) and cannot reliably read 360K images (`dir` is okay but actually loading from disk results in sector not found errors); formatting a disk image produces a 180K disk.

It's as if the Gotek is stuck in single-sided operation but there's no configuration I'm aware of or can locate that would cause that to be the case.

Same ribbon cable with the physical floppy drive works fine.

[smitty]

There's a decent alternative to HxC called Flash Floppy. It's free and seems to work well for me on the PCjr. Granted I haven't tested it extensively but I'm pretty happy with it so far.

[JudgeMonroe]

I've been having better luck after throwing out all my image files and starting over with only HFE files that I produce myself. Meaning no "off the shelf" IMG files go on the Gotek, as I cannot get those to work properly.

Even so, booting to an HFE disk image is pretty hit and miss; sometimes I have to try 6-10 times before it will boot the disk instead of saying "Disk Boot Error". Maybe there's a timing problem.

I have another Gotek on the way to try out FlashFloppy in contrast to HXC and maybe use as a B: drive in the Jr. If it hasn't been relegated to "boat anchor" by then, anyway.

A fun exercise is doing a "floppy install" of Pool of Radiance in a single-disk system using a Gotek. Try it out.

[JudgeMonroe]

There's a decent alternative to HxC called Flash Floppy. It's free and seems to work well for me on the PCjr. Granted I haven't tested it extensively but I'm pretty happy with it so far.

I flashed a (different) Gotek with FlashFloppy (2.14) today and so far it has none of the issues I've had with the HxC:

1. It booted a HFE DOS image the first time without issue (HxC fails to boot 60% of the time)
2. It formatted an "empty" 720K IMG image without issue (HxC will not format any IMG file beyond 180k)
3. It booted an IMG DOS image the first time without issue (HxC would only boot 180k IMG files)
4. It formatted an "empty" 360K IMG image without issue (HxC will not format any IMG file beyond 180k)

And so far it also does the things that the HxC does, which meaningfully are

1. Reads/writes HFE files
2. Correctly emulates copy-protection tracks in HFE files (e.g., Leisure Suit Larry)

[jason]

There's a decent alternative to HxC called Flash Floppy. It's free and seems to work well for me on the PCjr. Granted I haven't tested it extensively but I'm pretty happy with it so far.

I flashed a (different) Gotek with FlashFloppy (2.14) today and so far it has none of the issues I've had with the HxC:

1. It booted a HFE DOS image the first time without issue (HxC fails to boot 60% of the time)
2. It formatted an "empty" 720K IMG image without issue (HxC will not format any IMG file beyond 180k)
3. It booted an IMG DOS image the first time without issue (HxC would only boot 180k IMG files)
4. It formatted an "empty" 360K IMG image without issue (HxC will not format any IMG file beyond 180k)

And so far it also does the things that the HxC does, which meaningfully are

1. Reads/writes HFE files
2. Correctly emulates copy-protection tracks in HFE files (e.g., Leisure Suit Larry)

I apologize for resurrecting a year old thread but I am trying this route right now and having issues getting my Gotek to properly read HFE images when replacing my PCjr main drive. I can read IMG images just fine, but I can't for the life of me get an HFE one to work for DSDD 5 1/4" drive (360k to my understanding, 300 RPM).

I've got a Gotek with FlashFloppy 3.28 on it. It's configured for "interface=ibmpc" and "host=pc-dos". I created a bunch of raw image streams of disks a while back using Kryoflux and used HxC to convert the streams to HFE files. I've tried multiple disks and not have any luck getting it to read any of these HFE files. The HxC browser shows me the file listing when I open up the HFE files so I know they are at least somewhat good.

As a side note, I did put this same unit in place of my PC Enterprises 5 1/4" HD (1.2MB) drive and was able to read a 1.2MB HFE file just fine there. So I'm at a bit of a loss for what I could be doing wrong.

The Kryoflux streams were all pulled from a high density 5 1/4" drive (including for the DSDD images). I did also try pulling a new stream direct from the PCjr DSDD drive with no luck there either.

Any ideas to try? Does anyone know how to verify what type of disk HxC thinks it is creating from a stream so that I can verify it is detecting it correctly? Or can anyone send me a known good 360k HFE file that I can just verify that at least that works?