First of all this is a good place to start:

http://www.freewebs.com/computolio/amiga_floppy_compatibility.html

Now my findings (which in some cases differ from the page above, which is a GOOD thing as it brings everyone hope: when they say "NO", I say "YES", because it does work!):


* NOTE: "swapped cable" means you have to swap wire lines 2 and 34 at the end of the cable (part that connects to the floppy). Also something I forgot before but Castellen's site reminded me: make sure the 34 way cable is wired "straight" and doesn't have a twist in wires 10 to 16 (like most PC floppy cables do)
* NOTE: short == close == connected == jumper is put between the pins. unshorted == open == disconnected == jumper is NOT put between the pins
* NOTE: even if a drive works, it doesn't mean it will fit (mechanically) in the existing Amiga cases. You'll have to get your hands dirty for fixing that issue...
* NOTE: all these drives function as low density. According to the link above (and experimentation), it's not possible for most of them (almost all) to work as Amiga high density drives, due to the spinning speed which the Amiga uses, which is 150RPMs for high density drives


TEAC - FD-235HF4240 - YES it works! (with swapped cable)
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Align your drive so that the jumpers start with A at the bottom of your screen, and E at the top. As you're looking at them, the left column is named "2" and the right is "1". You want to short D2+C2, B2+A2

Epson - SMD300 - YES it works! (with swapped cable)
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You want to short 14+15, 1+2, 4+5

Mitsumi - D359T2 - YES it works! (with swapped cable)
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You want to short "DS0", "SW" but leave "OUT" open

Mitsumi - D359T3 - YES it works! (with swapped cable)
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You want to short "DS0", "SW" but leave "OUT" open

Mitsumi - D359T6 - NO it doesn't work!
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It might be doable, because there are jumper pads on it, but I've not played with it yet

Sony - MP-F73W-01D - YES it works! (with swapped cable)
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You want to toggle the switch to position "0" (zero), which happens to be towards the back of the drive

Sony - MPF520-D - YES it works! (with swapped cable)
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Align your drive so that jumpers 1 and 4 are at the bottom of your screen, and 3 and 6 at the top. As you're looking at them, the left column has "1" "2" "3" and the right has "4" "5" "6". You want to short 4+5

Sony - MP-F17W-2Z - YES it works! (with swapped cable)
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You want to toggle the switch to position "0" (zero), which happens to be towards the back of the drive


Good luck! Amiga forever! :-D

PS. One day I'll make a nice web page for it with images and much more comprehensive

You're welcome! I'll try to add more if I have any other floppy drives I've not tried. If you have any you want to add, feel free to send me a private message and I'll add it to the end of the list as well.

Eventually (time permitting) I'd like to do much more, like I said before: web page, photos on "how to", and also cable "how to", and finally (way in the future) tinkering around to see if I can get any PC high density floppy drive to at least read an Amiga high density disk, somehow...

iv just mod a mitsumi floppy it has a built in card reader
done it two days ago now fitted to a1200d ...

but what piss me off i did not need to do the mod all the time i had the hardware that converts **any** PC floppy..


it plug into the back of the floppy drive & has jumpers as well a chip to controll everything even high density on some floppy drive...

NOTE: there are two models iv got both models..
one has floppy drive on top of card reader, the other floppy on bottom..

How are you "swapping cable" ?  I did not have to swap any cables at all on the Teac FD-235HF drives... just set jumper settings, works 100%.  But not all FD-235HF drives work, only the earlier models. (with all the jumpers blocks)

@orange:

Just because it hasn't been done, doesn't mean it can't be done. And I also never said it would be easy. Anyways, like I said, it's way in the future, so no sense talking about it.

As for the "diode to get RDY signal", I don't know anything about it. Care to give some links? I'm no expert and neither do I profess to be, but I'm certainly a fast learner


@delshay:

Can you please re-word what you're saying? I can't understand it, but it sounds interesting. Something about a floppy with a built-in card-reader (MMC/SD/CF/etc??) and something about a chip you plug in the back of the drive to make it work as HD? AHA, I now see what you were talking about. Of course I also think this might be a rather rare item...


@TjLaZer:

The "swapped cable" is described at the top of the post: basically swapping 2 lines, not the cable itself. As for the Teac drives I gave a very precise model #, and for that, at least as far as I recall, I _had_ to use the swapped cable, else it didn't work. There are many variants of these drives, as you alluded, so perhaps some didn't need it.

One important addition that I forgot from the original post:

When talking about the floppy cables: make sure the 34 way cable is wired "straight" and doesn't have a twist in wires 10 to 16 (like most PC floppy cables do)

@da9000

just to add..

the card reader needs a USB interface..

floppy standard 34 way cable..

iv think also found the RD signal on MITSUMI floppy drive no need for a diode it works fine here in my a1200D..


NOTE: i dont need to mod the drive,i have the device to do it for me.. im just doing the mod to see how it works..

WARNING: the drive is not easy to put back together iv broken one drive already...iv also not started any mods on other MITSUMI model the one with the floppy above the card reader..try this drive at your own risk or wait until iv done the mod..

@nyder:

What I wrote (initially) is for getting an "880KB" drive into your Amiga, by using a PC high density drive. I've not managed to get a PC high density drive to behave as an Amiga high density drive. Not yet.

What delshay is using is an elecronic card (red in color and it seems to come with certain tower conversion kits, I think those from Elbox), which will allow said PC high density drives to ALSO be used as Amiga high density drives (1760KB). He's also talking about having found a floppy drive that contains also a built-in flash memory card reader, and said drive can be used with Amigas without a "RDY line diode hack", of which I've not heard.

There's also the "Catweasel" solution for both PCs and Amigas. Search for it on www.amiga-hardware.com or amiga.resource.cx elsewhere.

Hope this all makes sense? If not, ask away