Not ready error writing drive B - Amstrad PPC640/PPC512

[Leeev]

Hi,
I've got a small issue with FlashFloppy on my Amstrad PPC640 luggable.
I've installed it as Drive B: as the machine only had a single 720K DSDD floppy.
Using only jumper S1 and the current 2.14 firmware, the Gotek drive appears to work fine. I can copy disk images to the USB stick and they appear as B:. I can format them, copy/edit/delete files, the machine will even boot DOS off the Gotek. All good.

However, when I try to copy a file from A: to B: I get a
"Not ready error writing drive B"
I've tried swapping the drives to make the Gotek A: and the positions on the cable, but the result is the same. Also tried, M0 instead of S0 (general failure error). I've added "motor-delay=200" (no difference).
The only odd thing I've noticed is that the motor on the floppy drive spins up when I access files on the Gotek, which doesn't seem right.

Anyone else had this on a PPC? Any ideas on how to fix it? From the FAQ the Amstrad is supposed to be a 'standard Shugart' drive?

[keirf]

motor-delay=200 won't do anything unless you do the motor line hardware mod. This may or may not be your issue. I'm not sure PPC is explicitly discussed in the wiki.

You expect both drives to turn their motor on at the same time as they share a motor enable signal.

[Leeev]

Ah, right, so the motor spinning and delay is a red herring. Excellent.

The PPC640 is mentioned here in the wiki
https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy/wiki/Host-Platforms#ibm-pc

Testing some more, it seems coping files off the Gotek is OK, it's copying file to the Gotek is the issue. And even then, small files are copied OK, anything over about 6K fails with the Not Ready error.

Seems like it's timing out maybe?

I also have a parallel port SD adapter (that pretends to be a slow hard drive). This also has the same issues so it's not the physical floppy causing the problems, it seems like it's the Gotek.

[keirf]

Large writes may be taking time to write to usb and then the host is timing out waiting for the gotek to respond again. What stick are you using? Can you try another?

[bradwh]

What happens if you copy a large file from the Gotek back to the Amstrad's floppy?

[Leeev]

The original USB stick was a 3 year old 256MB stick I got free at an event, using it on a PC works fine, as does fully formatting it, and H2Test. I get that this may be junk though. So I gathered 8 other USB sticks I have on hand, from 1GB to 16GB in capacity, and makes like Kingston/Intenso/Toshiba. Formatted them all and copied over the images. They all exhibit the same issues, though the 'best' 16GB Kingston did manage to copy one 12K file over before it errored.

I wonder if this is a weird oddity that affects the Amstrad PPC's ?

[keirf]

Another thing to try, then, is index-suppression = no in FF.CFG

[Leeev]

Another thing to try, then, is index-suppression = no in FF.CFG

Ah! Now that seems to to have (almost) fixed the problem! I can now copy lots of files to/from the Gotek without the Not Ready error. Result!

However, I've noticed that occasionally it now throws up a Sector Not Found error reading from the Gotek. Pressing R for Retry reads the sector correctly (I compare the copied file to the original).

The error is completely repeatable, that file will Sector Not Found every time, with a single retry correcting the issue. Copying the same set of files off the floppy to another image on the Gotek, then copying them back to the floppy resulted in a different file have a repeatable SNF error.

Now it was late, but I think cycling the power caused that initial SNF file to copy OK, but another one then had the SNF error. I'll try this again tonight and also with another of the USB sticks.

[keirf]

Here's another recipe for you to try:

index-suppression = yes
track-change = realtime

I'm not sure this will work but worth a try. Otherwise I could try making index-suppression=no a bit less aggressive, perhaps targeting writes only.

EDIT: To be honest I'm not sure it's index related at all. The schematic for PPC640 doesn't have anything fancy happening with the index signal. Perhaps it is to do with where track read restarts after a write is completed. We could investigate that with some test firmware builds.

[Leeev]

index-suppression = yes
track-change = realtime

That worked too, but still have the same SNF error that worked after a retry.
I don't know about the inner workings, but I'm up for testing some new firmware!

[keirf]

Well, I'm kind of surprised that fixed the write errors :) I will work on a test firmware for you to try, that just tweaks the index-suppression=yes, track-change=realtime behaviour.

Meanwhile can you just double check no typos in your FF.CFG for the previous test: I'm that surprised it worked so well for you, I'm a little bit suspicious.

EDIT: Another way to test your previous configuration, would be to modify the track-change line to track-change = instant and observe that your original behaviour (Not Ready on writes) comes back. If so, switch it back again to track-change = realtime, observe the SNF error comes back, and then run the test firmware that I post here shortly.

[keirf]

Okay, here is a firmware to try. You should use it with the index-suppression = yes and track-change = realtime config options.

ff_320_1.zip

[Leeev]

No typos, all cut & pasted from your messages.
Above settings and errors as predicted.

New firmware flashed from the .upd file (two buttons pressed at power up), it said "Upd" on the display?

So my setting are currently -

nav-mode = indexed
interface = shugart
index-suppression = yes
track-change = realtime

But sadly it still gives Sector Not Found on copying stuff off the Gotek to the floppy drive.

Another thing I tried was tried was to used DISKCOPY to create a physical boot disk (for DOS 5) from an image on the Gotek, this gave "Unrecoverable read errors" on three "tracks" in the image, which was repeatable.

[keirf]

If you switch back to track-change=instant do the read and diskcopy (gotek to real drive) errors all disappear?

EDIT: Also what image type are you using? IMG files?

EDIT: And yes, Upd on display means you are in update mode. Then you should automatically return to normal operation after the update is completed.

[Leeev]

OK, switched back to track-change=instant and the read errors and sector not found errors disappear (I can complete the diskcopy ok now!). However the "Drive Not Ready" errors when writing files TO the Gotek have reappeared. Seems the firmware change wasn't effective? :(

Yes, I'm using 720K .img files (the floppy drive and controller are on Double Density) that I've found the net. The images seem OK in that I can open then up on my Linux PC, pull the files out of the them and the contents of the files seem OK.

[keirf]

This is just super weird. I don't suppose you have two real drives you can test, as a control case for copying between two drives on the PPC?

EDIT: Also, update to the latest v3.12a firmware for any further Gotek tests. That's the benchmark for debugging stuff, and we should drop the changes that I introduced in the ff_320_1 firmware above.