Douglas, your welcome. Thank YOU very much for featuring my tool "FluxMyFluffyFloppy" - yes, don't judge the application name. I created it out of fun coz life is already hard enough ;)
What a coincidence. I got my GreaseWeazle v4 the other day and it's working great! I couldn't believe my eyes when it would read my 30+ years old disk without any problems. Almost brought me to tears hearing my old noise tracker songs and reading my own assembly source code written 30 years ago.
@@10MARC I forgot to thank you for your great channel. It brings so much good memories back and I feel that I really should to bring my old A3000 back to life. Just have to fix the motherboard from a leaking battery.
Congrats! Restoring my old C64 asm sources, intro rips and other self written stuff was my main motivation to get back to retro computing years ago. Since then I shifted from the C64 to the Amiga and it's been such an interesting and fun journey. (I got a greaseweazle a few weeks ago too.)
Excellent video! :-) Bought one of these from Amigastore in Spain and your video was of great help getting it up and running. Using floppies in WinUAE is a fantastic feeling! Takes the emulation to a whole new level - feels more authentic. Thanks for a great video, very helpful!
Thank you so much for this piece of amiga hardware! It's amazing that the amiga community is doing so well! thank you! I just bought it after watching your presentation. So now waiting when this nice piece will be delivered here in the netherlands. Very good price for 20euro incl. shipping from the UK to the Netherlands.
Great video Doug as always. Greeseweazle has been around for ages but it's cool to have a pre-built accessible, and dare i say, low cost one ready to buy. I do want to add that using it to write ADF's is perhaps under-utilisation. ADF, while great, is limited when it comes to copy protected disks. The Greeseweazle can write to (and from) IPF format, which is a full preservation format that does support copy protection. This is the best way to preserve and restore original Amiga games. Thanks again for the video Doug. Keep up the awesome work.
Doug, I own a Cat Weasel MkIV but did not have much luck as it was before the drivers to use it in WinUAE. This along with Rob Smith's Drawbridge will really make a difference cause IMHO in spite of what some nay sayers say; Many Amiga users want Floppy access. I have heaps of Floppies like you and almost all still work fine as long as I clean the drive heads occasionally. Love the review.
@@10MARC No it did work well but there was no GUI and I did not understand much about adf files at the time. My new AMD motherboard now does not have a PCI slot so the Catweasel cannot be used. It could use 2 floppy drives as Amiga drives or PC drives. I believe Ian Gledhill, an acquaintance of Stephen Jones form the UK did write some windows drivers for it to be used in WinUAE but I did not pick up on that at the time. In WinUAE today that option still exists I believe right there in where you choose your drive. I believe it is there along with GW and the Drawbridge. I have actually just ordered the GW after watching your review. I really like the idea that it can be set up as if it is a real drive in Winuae.
@@alanhaynes4576 oh that is interesting. I do see that WinUAE does have an option for Catweasel, but you are correct - finding a motherboard that still supports PCI is quite challenging!
7:45 - "Ha, that's hard to read". If you hold Ctrl and scroll-wheel up or down, CMD enlarges or shrinks in size. I'm 64 and have to change it. (Also for my newly discovered TelNet app)
Just received the PCB!!! a day earlier than the earliest projected date-range! I got to do the update part using a PC HD (1.44) drive successfully, but the command results "Command Failed: GetFluixStatus: No Index" I tried the floppy cable in backward, too... and got "Command Failed: Seek: Track 0 not found" and the DOS window froze for about a minute... Oh, tried a different floppy cable, same results: same results with a Amiga drive. No drive activity at all, but the red light changes to green when I give it a command.
the Atari st is the sister of the Amiga microcomputer..... yep it was almost identical to the Amiga (68000 microprocessor and floppy drive and a few custom chips too).... the Atari st was mainly used in music and games and programs too etc.....
Telling an someone who has used an Amiga for over 30 years that an ST is it's "Sister Computer " is like telling a Porsche owner that a Volkswagen Beetle is it's "Sister Car" 🤣🤣😉
What the fu** this is much better than I thought... 😮....but Doug you hacked my amigakit account 🤣 just put the GW in my basket... But was not sure to order.... And just some minutes later you uploaded this video.... And now.... I need to get one... Who told you? 🤣 Thanks for pushing my decision with this video.
Language skills are just fine Doug, appreciate re-learning the greaseweazle. Today I converted 27 disks of which 16 were hd. Thats a first for me. I have so many disks that are corrupted unfortunately. Keep up the good work and POP it in anytime, cause even good cooks love to pop it in. ;)
Good question. I do not know anything about the Drawbridge. I just spoke to the guy who wrote the driver for WinUAE on the GreaseWeazle this morning And he said compatibility is really quite good. Even booting from floppy games works quite well.
@@10MARC That’s good. I did some tests on the Drawbridge and the results will/should be in the next Amiga Addict issue. I discovered that anything where timing is an issue, the State of the Art demo for example, has issues.
@@duncanstyles133 You should try the latest build.... Its still not perfect, and this isn't specific to drawbridge (GW has the same 'slowdown'), but in 'turbo mode' its quite close. FYI: DrawBridge for the emulator in some cases will be slightly faster, this is because it can abort reading data from the disk in the middle of a read, where as GW has to wait until its finished.
Thanks for your video. I just ordered 2, and they arrive today. 1 to use 1 for backup. Will it work with an external amiga drive? I have my external a500 drive
Can the GreaseWeazle V4 read/write AMIGA HD Disks in Winuae? I am talking about reading/writing disks from the Amiga OS itself. Thanks for the Video. Very good stuff
It seems to be able to. It recognizes the 1.76 MB format when I pop in an HD disk, and I can tell it to format. The two disks I tried failed in two different areas, so I think I just had a few bad disks. I suspect it will work fine, though.
Great video. I just re-discovered my Amigas (500 & 4000) as well as learned about the Gotel and Goex. I have looked all over for just this video but everybody tells you have to install it with little to nothing about how to make ADF files on your PC to go on the thumb drive. THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO. Just ordered a GW. I have an external USB will it work with that or do I need a PC internal type drive?
I can read disks all day long, but I can't write a single Amiga disk to save my life, Flux Underflow/terminate at index, I'll keep trying though. Thank you for the video.
So it converts an Amiga disk to an ADF reliably? And those work just fine in WinUAE? Do the disks you are then trying to create work in other instances? I would clean the disk heads if you have not already done so. And make sure they are DS DD disks you are writing to. Any chance you can try a different drive?
@@10MARC After about 12 hours of messing around with it, I used Greaseweazle UI and the bandwidth test to find out that my main PC is lacking because of all of the stuff I have hooked to it. I hooked it up to another computer that was light on USB components (I.E. Keyboard and Mouse) and it worked instantly, with bare Host Tools, Greaseweazle GUI, and FMFF.
@@10MARC I'll link you a follow up, I can't "mention" you as I don't have enough subs on my channel, but I'm making a "what could possibly go wrong" type video and the resolution. I recorded much of the 12 hours I spent messing around with varying success and fails, but I need some footage of my success. I am going to post a link to this video in the description and mention you and the video in my video.
@@patrickgomes15 I never ended up making the video, illness hit the family big time, and I've only been working on my main channel recently. To remedy the issue, you need to ensure you don't have a lot of things plugged in to USB, having the minimum of a keyboard and mouse fixed my issue. The GW doesn't require as much power to read as it does to write.
Having constant hurdles with mine, a simple one as well, when i select a template.. it doesnt fill in any of the boxes! im not sure whats up with it. Ive yet to successfully write a floppy image adf or even an atari st one, just always getting errors verifying or whatever
how are you running the power off the Floppy Drive, is your external power or using the GreaseWeazle because I plug the drive "Amiga Drive" into the GW I hear a click and then nothing? I'm always getting GetFluxStatus No Index.
I am using the power from USB 3.0 on the Greaseweazle board. It works with all my drives. Can you get the unit to work with PC drives? I hope it is not a bad one!
In 0.39 and firmware 1.1 it looks as if you need to put the drive parameter in e.g. gw read --drive a xxx.adf (PC), gw read --drive 0 xxx.adf (Amiga), otherwise the drive read does not start.
Hi Doug, after your awesome video I bought myself a GreaseWeazel and it's absolutely stunning. It's reading my old Amiga demo-disks absolutely fine which I didn't get to work on any of my Amiga floppy drives at all. Thanks for all your work! I have one more question though - you mentioned a software which displays the magnetic flux graphically but I can't find the name or a link to it. Can you please help me out with that?
Both work just dandy! I have heard of people hooking up old 8" Schugart drives to their greazeweazels! Of course the Amiga cannot read those very well...
@@10MARC hello can you help me out winuae does not boot from amiga floppy i have greaseweasle v4 it don’t boot please help it says track 0 not found please help thanks
that reminds me of good old catweasle isa cards individual computers used to sell in the 90s. a catweasle card with a second floppy drive attached to it allowed to read/write amiga floppies on pc back in the 90s. where can i download that beautiful wallpaper you used on your amiga 1000?
That is one of my own pictures. What size do you need it? I can resize and send it to you. I am sure the creator is having fun with the name calling it the GreaseWeazle in honor of the Catweasel!
@@10MARC thanks in advance! i'd like to use it 1024x768 for my amiga 4000 (once i get it up and running again), 1920x1080 for my main pc (and amiga emulation which also runs in full hd resolution) and if it's not too much work i'd also like to use it on my ecs a500+ in 640x512 in 16 colours. :) should i post an email address for you to send or will you upload it somewhere? i hope youtube lets me post email adress without deleting my comment.
@@10MARC as i expected, youtube censored/deleted my email comment. so how can i tell you my email? i obviously can't comment without that comment being deleted.
Pretty thorough review. But I was wondering if an external pc 3.5 floppy drive that has a usb 2 cable-if that could be interfaced with the greazeweasel. I have one of those external drives and they are plentiful and new. Of course I could pull a drive from one of my 486 machines, or even from my Amiga 500. Any thoughts?
i have a greaseweazle pc drive rev1 that someone gave me that im not too familiar with - can i use this to create floppies for an amiga 500? i need to create a workbench 1.3 floppy to boot my amiga 500 i actually have two amiga 500s, one with a gotek installed and one with the floppy drive but i cant get either of them working as of yet becuase im an amiga n00b
When I try to use the disk I wrote on amiga 1200, I get the "unreadable" icon appear, that popped up on yours before the dctv4 appeared a split second later and am unable to access the disk. Any thoughts?
Can't get disks to show in WinUAE --- On startup I get: "Floppy Disk Bridge Error Unable to replace DF0: (or DF1:) using GreaseWeazle GreaseWeazle board was not detected.. Drive DF0: will be disabled and Ignored."
Two things. Of course make sure you've downloaded the latest version of the beta which I'm sure you did. Second, make sure that you run WinUAE with administrative rights. Right click and choose run as administrator. It's the only way it works really well. You also may want to double check and make sure the grease weasel is showing up on COM 3, and confirm what kind of drive you're using.
Great review Doug and now thanks to your review I feel confident enough to buy one myself. Keep up the great reviews. If you have 2 x GW can you set up in WInUAE to have DF0: and DF!:?
I don't think so. It looks like only one drive can be chosen. I bet it would not be impossible to have them code it in if enough people asked. I really like mine and hope to use it a lot.
@@10MARC I did read on Discord recently that Rob Smith was going to do it when he had the time. But it is still uncertain if the controller is available due to all this chip shortage thanks to the China Virus. How is episode 100 coming along? Just to keep you on your toes.
@@alanhaynes4576 yes... About Episode 100... My Amiga 4000 with my 68060/66 MHz stopped working over a month ago, which was quite upsetting. I had to put it on a shelf since I was concentrating so much on The Amiga Art Contest and AmiWest in October. Last week I put it on the bench and fixed it, so I can continue on with the project!
@@10MARC That is good news Doug that it was able to be fixed. The day will come when they won't unfortunately. That is why modern iterations are so important but I digress. I am looking forward to Episode 100 as there is supposed to be something in it that you mentioned in another episode, possibly 101 that I thought would be very interesting. Sorry for pestering but I am looking forward to it
You forgot to mention that Keirf's hardware is a simple connector interface that plugs into a Blue Pill. The AmigaKit version appears to be an all-in-one board where the Blue Pill has been put on the same custom PCB. The two are completely different and unless you have a Blue Pill there's little value in ordering the separate interface PCB and building one yourself. Sadly the AmigaKit version is only sold, no open-source version even though the project is open-source. Quite sad.
This review was specifically about the version that Amiga kit and other awesome resellers sell. I know there is a open source version if you want to build your own, and anyone is welcome to do that. Kier is also welcome to monetize his creation and recoup some of the money for all the time and effort that he put into these projects. I 100% support that. To be honest, if somebody did not build this and sell it at their store, I would never build one myself. Remember, taking PCBs and soldering doodads on them to make cool devices is a very niche market, maybe 10 to 15% of the people who really appreciate the amiga have any interest or skill in doing that themselves. On the other hand, they have a very strong interest in going to a storefront, putting one in their cart, ordering it, and just having it work. Luckily, he gave us the best of both worlds. You can build one with your own parts if you want to, or you can buy one pre-made. Best of both worlds.
@@10MARC Actually RobSmiths DrawBridge is a quite interesting alternative. You can build it yourself, but he also developed a custom board wich fits into theese nice external slim PC-USB-Discdrives - wich are available new for about $20. The most compact solution - but a long waiting list (about 2400 people waiting and he produce about 10 per day).
There is a very helpful Facebook group where most of the tech support happens. I will go put the link to it in the description. If you don't have Facebook reach out to me via one of my other Social Media accounts.
@@10MARC hello, i tried again, even using new floppys which were packed and brand new. still the same problem. wont write. even covered up the blank hole and still the same problem
@@10MARC ok thanks but how do i plug in the power and data cables? ? also can this boot into Workbench 1.2? from an Amiga floppy disc? thanks..... yep how do i plug in the power and data cables if the pc is brand new? thanks.....
That is a totally raw format that has the actual magnetic flux images in an uncompressed format. Not sure how useful it is, but some tools can actually view the flux as an image onscreen. I have never tried it.
Hello there. I'm a newie in the amiga scene. I hope you can help. Because I search online and it didn't help me understand what's going on... I follow your instructions, but when I try write a adf on a 2HD floppy (with the hole covered) I get this message. greaseweazle command failed seek track 0 not found I tried changing drive 0 1 A B and got the same error.
Using high density floppies and trying to format them as double density very seldom works properly. You might get it to format, but those discs that have probably about an 80% failure rate formatted to double density. I think I generally set mine to drive one. Have you had any luck at all using the grease weasel or does it fail every time? You may want to reach out either to my social media accounts or to my email, which you will find on my TH-cam page under about.
@@10MARC Hey, thank you for the reply. The drive on my greaseweazle is a PC Drive. I was told that it works with regular HD floppies (covering the hole) and the amiga can read those, also since is not possible to buy new DD disk, instead of the 2HD that are still sold new. Yeah I get that error everytime. I'm sure the greaseweazel work, since I can do bandwich test, and gw info, shows the correct status of my greaseweazel. I've tried to change the drive select, but It doesn't work either. So now im in the "no idea what to do" I followed many instructions/guides online. But I just don't understand what's wrong.
@@Leon05X You can buy DSDD floppies all day long at floppydisk (dot) com - You might be able to use HD disks, but the way the media is created makes them terribly unreliable. I do not recommend it at all. There is a really great Facebook page for the Greaseweasel and the Github page. Have you tried the GUI? I really like "Fluxmyfluffyfloppy" - it is a nice interface. Feel free to send screenshots of how you have yours set up to any of my Social Media accounts or my email. I will try to help.
@@10MARC Thank you for the reply once again. I more like meant in my country is not possible to buy new DSDD floppies. And buying them outisde is really really expensive (due to tax, and sending fees) yeah Im using both GUI (Flux and GreaseWeazleGUI) I post asking for help in the project discussion page, but he don't reply as nice as you. I sent to you an email :).
@@10MARC I really hope you can help. I have this GreaseWeazel because I was told it could work with regular 2HD floppy disk. Yesterday I've tried to write disk for 8hours, reading testing and changing configs but all I get is the same error... Track 0 Not Found. I have absolutely no idea how to continue. I sent you photos to your email (the one shown in your youtube information) of my GreaseWeazelGUI config to write.
A few years ago, when I still had a SAM460, I bought a Kryoflux to read my pile of Amiga Diskspare formatted 1.98 MB disks. The Kryoflux did not like the SAMs USB hub. So, the Kryoflux was a useless $100 gadget. Does the Greaseweasel read diskspare formatted disks?
Ok... I looked up NASP... Does that stand for "National Association of School Psychologists" or "National Archery in the Schools Program"? I'm sure it's neither. But I'm also sure I have absolutely no idea what you mean. ;)
Douglas, your welcome. Thank YOU very much for featuring my tool "FluxMyFluffyFloppy" - yes, don't judge the application name. I created it out of fun coz life is already hard enough ;)
I love the software! I do have some questions about the settings under disk writing - I will send you a FB message about them
The camera Chris Edwards transition effect, I was.falling off my chair cracking up... nailed it
What a coincidence. I got my GreaseWeazle v4 the other day and it's working great! I couldn't believe my eyes when it would read my 30+ years old disk without any problems. Almost brought me to tears hearing my old noise tracker songs and reading my own assembly source code written 30 years ago.
They really are amazing, aren't they? My thrill of seeing the drive show up in WinUAE was real! What a great device this is.
@@10MARC I forgot to thank you for your great channel. It brings so much good memories back and I feel that I really should to bring my old A3000 back to life. Just have to fix the motherboard from a leaking battery.
So, we have the Kryoflux, Supercard Pro, the DrawBridge, and now the Greasweasel; are there more?
@@CrazyDriverSwed yes, you should bring that A3000 back to life! It is 100% worth it! Those beautiful machines are fairly valuable now.
Congrats! Restoring my old C64 asm sources, intro rips and other self written stuff was my main motivation to get back to retro computing years ago. Since then I shifted from the C64 to the Amiga and it's been such an interesting and fun journey. (I got a greaseweazle a few weeks ago too.)
Absolutely awesome Doug thank you.
Happy that you liked it!
Thanks for the wonderful review!
There is a new version of the Greaseweazel II should be getting in a few weeks. It may be worth an updated review.
Excellent video! :-) Bought one of these from Amigastore in Spain and your video was of great help getting it up and running. Using floppies in WinUAE is a fantastic feeling! Takes the emulation to a whole new level - feels more authentic. Thanks for a great video, very helpful!
Happy to help. I have a 3D printed case for mine now, which is just awesome!
Thank you so much for this piece of amiga hardware! It's amazing that the amiga community is doing so well! thank you! I just bought it after watching your presentation. So now waiting when this nice piece will be delivered here in the netherlands. Very good price for 20euro incl. shipping from the UK to the Netherlands.
It is phenomenal how much is coming out for the Amiga these last few years. Just some amazing products arriving!
Great video, Liking the syntax and lexicon.
The G.W It’s clearly amazing. It’s got lots of features in it, & the war on failing floppies is over.
This device does solve so many problems. I hope I can find the time to archive my 500+ disks!
Great video Doug as always. Greeseweazle has been around for ages but it's cool to have a pre-built accessible, and dare i say, low cost one ready to buy. I do want to add that using it to write ADF's is perhaps under-utilisation. ADF, while great, is limited when it comes to copy protected disks. The Greeseweazle can write to (and from) IPF format, which is a full preservation format that does support copy protection. This is the best way to preserve and restore original Amiga games. Thanks again for the video Doug. Keep up the awesome work.
What a cool device! I used a catweasel back in the day to great success.
Don't tell me you got rid of that Catweasel! Does she still exist somewhere in your garage?
@@10MARC Unfortunately it was borrowed from someone else and I was stupid enough to give it back. 😂
Top banana!
Might have to get a GW! Seems a must have gadget for any Amiga tinkerer, which I most certainly am.
Gav
For sure. This little guy should be in all of our toolkits without a doubt!
Thanks for Sharing. Have ordered one. ("Atari St, Never heard of it" - LOL)
I think you will enjoy it. Once I get some free time I have hundreds of actual original disks to back up.
Doug, I own a Cat Weasel MkIV but did not have much luck as it was before the drivers to use it in WinUAE.
This along with Rob Smith's Drawbridge will really make a difference cause IMHO in spite of what some nay sayers say; Many Amiga users want Floppy access. I have heaps of Floppies like you and almost all still work fine as long as I clean the drive heads occasionally.
Love the review.
So your CatWeasel did not work well? I have never heard much about them. I knew they existed even back in the day. They were ISA or PCI cards, right?
@@10MARC No it did work well but there was no GUI and I did not understand much about adf files at the time.
My new AMD motherboard now does not have a PCI slot so the Catweasel cannot be used. It could use 2 floppy drives as Amiga drives or PC drives.
I believe Ian Gledhill, an acquaintance of Stephen Jones form the UK did write some windows drivers for it to be used in WinUAE but I did not pick up on that at the time.
In WinUAE today that option still exists I believe right there in where you choose your drive. I believe it is there along with GW and the Drawbridge.
I have actually just ordered the GW after watching your review. I really like the idea that it can be set up as if it is a real drive in Winuae.
@@10MARC The Mark IV is PCI and there was an ISA one I believe as well as one for the Amiga
@@alanhaynes4576 oh that is interesting. I do see that WinUAE does have an option for Catweasel, but you are correct - finding a motherboard that still supports PCI is quite challenging!
❤ Keir Fraser ❤
That's right! What a great guy!
7:45 - "Ha, that's hard to read". If you hold Ctrl and scroll-wheel up or down, CMD enlarges or shrinks in size. I'm 64 and have to change it. (Also for my newly discovered TelNet app)
I will have to try that trick out! I can usually read it okay right on my laptop, but I sure did notice when I went full screen it looks super tiny!
Just received the PCB!!! a day earlier than the earliest projected date-range!
I got to do the update part using a PC HD (1.44) drive successfully, but the command results
"Command Failed: GetFluixStatus: No Index"
I tried the floppy cable in backward, too... and got
"Command Failed: Seek: Track 0 not found" and the DOS window froze for about a minute...
Oh, tried a different floppy cable, same results: same results with a Amiga drive.
No drive activity at all, but the red light changes to green when I give it a command.
great just got mine will try this amazing tutorial thanks
Excellent! You will love it! I hope you don't have the floppy drive problems I did!
thanks
the Atari st is the sister of the Amiga microcomputer..... yep it was almost identical to the Amiga (68000 microprocessor and floppy drive and a few custom chips too).... the Atari st was mainly used in music and games and programs too etc.....
Telling an someone who has used an Amiga for over 30 years that an ST is it's "Sister Computer " is like telling a Porsche owner that a Volkswagen Beetle is it's "Sister Car" 🤣🤣😉
What the fu** this is much better than I thought... 😮....but Doug you hacked my amigakit account 🤣 just put the GW in my basket... But was not sure to order.... And just some minutes later you uploaded this video.... And now.... I need to get one... Who told you? 🤣
Thanks for pushing my decision with this video.
Do not adjust your LCD monitor. I control the horizontal. I control the vertical.
"Pop it it". Wonder what ever happened to "Put". Seems like we can't put anything in anymore, must "POP" it in.
Good video and good info :)
Probably my Midwestern United States language skills
Language skills are just fine Doug, appreciate re-learning the greaseweazle. Today I converted 27 disks of which 16 were hd. Thats a first for me. I have so many disks that are corrupted unfortunately. Keep up the good work and POP it in anytime, cause even good cooks love to pop it in. ;)
Oh so similar to the DrawBridge which I have been using. I wonder which has the better compatibility with Amiga floppies in WinUAE?
Good question. I do not know anything about the Drawbridge. I just spoke to the guy who wrote the driver for WinUAE on the GreaseWeazle this morning And he said compatibility is really quite good. Even booting from floppy games works quite well.
@@10MARC That’s good. I did some tests on the Drawbridge and the results will/should be in the next Amiga Addict issue. I discovered that anything where timing is an issue, the State of the Art demo for example, has issues.
@@duncanstyles133 You should try the latest build.... Its still not perfect, and this isn't specific to drawbridge (GW has the same 'slowdown'), but in 'turbo mode' its quite close. FYI: DrawBridge for the emulator in some cases will be slightly faster, this is because it can abort reading data from the disk in the middle of a read, where as GW has to wait until its finished.
@@RobSmithDev Cool, I will check that out. Thanks 👍
Thanks for your video. I just ordered 2, and they arrive today. 1 to use 1 for backup. Will it work with an external amiga drive? I have my external a500 drive
It Will work with an Amiga external drive if you take it out of the case.
Can the GreaseWeazle V4 read/write AMIGA HD Disks in Winuae? I am talking about reading/writing disks from the Amiga OS itself. Thanks for the Video. Very good stuff
It seems to be able to. It recognizes the 1.76 MB format when I pop in an HD disk, and I can tell it to format. The two disks I tried failed in two different areas, so I think I just had a few bad disks. I suspect it will work fine, though.
Jan Beta forever :)
Tee hee hee!
Great video. I just re-discovered my Amigas (500 & 4000) as well as learned about the Gotel and Goex. I have looked all over for just this video but everybody tells you have to install it with little to nothing about how to make ADF files on your PC to go on the thumb drive. THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO. Just ordered a GW. I have an external USB will it work with that or do I need a PC internal type drive?
Thanks for the kind words! You will need an actual PC drive or an Amiga drive to make it work. Luckily there are lots of used ones out there.
Hopefully not a dumb question as I haven’t tried winuae yet, could I use this to back up files from Amiga floppies to the pc?
100% you can! There is a driver for the Greaseweazle that makes it just look like an Amiga floppy on WinUAE. It works really well!
I can read disks all day long, but I can't write a single Amiga disk to save my life, Flux Underflow/terminate at index, I'll keep trying though. Thank you for the video.
So it converts an Amiga disk to an ADF reliably? And those work just fine in WinUAE? Do the disks you are then trying to create work in other instances? I would clean the disk heads if you have not already done so. And make sure they are DS DD disks you are writing to. Any chance you can try a different drive?
@@10MARC After about 12 hours of messing around with it, I used Greaseweazle UI and the bandwidth test to find out that my main PC is lacking because of all of the stuff I have hooked to it. I hooked it up to another computer that was light on USB components (I.E. Keyboard and Mouse) and it worked instantly, with bare Host Tools, Greaseweazle GUI, and FMFF.
@@10MARC I'll link you a follow up, I can't "mention" you as I don't have enough subs on my channel, but I'm making a "what could possibly go wrong" type video and the resolution. I recorded much of the 12 hours I spent messing around with varying success and fails, but I need some footage of my success. I am going to post a link to this video in the description and mention you and the video in my video.
@@dasfaustsretrogaming2620Hi. Could I have a link to the video you created? And has there been a simpler solution invented since this exchange?
@@patrickgomes15 I never ended up making the video, illness hit the family big time, and I've only been working on my main channel recently. To remedy the issue, you need to ensure you don't have a lot of things plugged in to USB, having the minimum of a keyboard and mouse fixed my issue. The GW doesn't require as much power to read as it does to write.
Having constant hurdles with mine, a simple one as well, when i select a template.. it doesnt fill in any of the boxes! im not sure whats up with it.
Ive yet to successfully write a floppy image adf or even an atari st one, just always getting errors verifying or whatever
Well that's not good. Have you updated it to the latest version? They have a very nice Facebook group that is also quite helpful.
how are you running the power off the Floppy Drive, is your external power or using the GreaseWeazle because I plug the drive "Amiga Drive" into the GW I hear a click and then nothing? I'm always getting GetFluxStatus No Index.
I am using the power from USB 3.0 on the Greaseweazle board. It works with all my drives. Can you get the unit to work with PC drives? I hope it is not a bad one!
In 0.39 and firmware 1.1 it looks as if you need to put the drive parameter in e.g. gw read --drive a xxx.adf (PC), gw read --drive 0 xxx.adf (Amiga), otherwise the drive read does not start.
Myself I use a gotek and DF1: with xcopy pro but them ordinal disk will no work this way , looking forward to the next one..
Oh for sure! That works great too. I often use Edu Aranas external ""GoTek" on my real Amiga to do the same thing.
I do believe Amiga Disks Can Go BEYOND 80 Tracks,Commercial Disks Anyways...
Yep . Like 83 or 84 I think.
Hi Doug, after your awesome video I bought myself a GreaseWeazel and it's absolutely stunning. It's reading my old Amiga demo-disks absolutely fine which I didn't get to work on any of my Amiga floppy drives at all. Thanks for all your work! I have one more question though - you mentioned a software which displays the magnetic flux graphically but I can't find the name or a link to it. Can you please help me out with that?
Sure.. I will track it down and pop down a link in the description
hello does the floppy drive need to be a 1.44 meg or can it be a 720k double density drive too? cos i got both here thanks............
Both work just dandy! I have heard of people hooking up old 8" Schugart drives to their greazeweazels! Of course the Amiga cannot read those very well...
@@10MARC hello can you help me out winuae does not boot from amiga floppy i have greaseweasle v4 it don’t boot please help it says track 0 not found please help thanks
that reminds me of good old catweasle isa cards individual computers used to sell in the 90s. a catweasle card with a second floppy drive attached to it allowed to read/write amiga floppies on pc back in the 90s.
where can i download that beautiful wallpaper you used on your amiga 1000?
That is one of my own pictures. What size do you need it? I can resize and send it to you.
I am sure the creator is having fun with the name calling it the GreaseWeazle in honor of the Catweasel!
@@10MARC thanks in advance! i'd like to use it 1024x768 for my amiga 4000 (once i get it up and running again), 1920x1080 for my main pc (and amiga emulation which also runs in full hd resolution) and if it's not too much work i'd also like to use it on my ecs a500+ in 640x512 in 16 colours. :)
should i post an email address for you to send or will you upload it somewhere? i hope youtube lets me post email adress without deleting my comment.
@@10MARC as i expected, youtube censored/deleted my email comment. so how can i tell you my email? i obviously can't comment without that comment being deleted.
Pretty thorough review. But I was wondering if an external pc 3.5 floppy drive that has a usb 2 cable-if that could be interfaced with the greazeweasel. I have one of those external drives and they are plentiful and new. Of course I could pull a drive from one of my 486 machines, or even from my Amiga 500. Any thoughts?
Nope.. whatever you hook up needs a 34 pin ribbon cable.
ok thanks what about the Amiga Drawbridge? does that work with new pcs? thanks......
I have not tried that one but I am fairly certain that it does
i have a greaseweazle pc drive rev1 that someone gave me that im not too familiar with - can i use this to create floppies for an amiga 500? i need to create a workbench 1.3 floppy to boot my amiga 500 i actually have two amiga 500s, one with a gotek installed and one with the floppy drive but i cant get either of them working as of yet becuase im an amiga n00b
I use the newer revision, but I suspect the older one also writes Amiga disks. You should be able to take an ADF and creat a real Amiga floppy from it
@@10MARC i actually succeeded in making some disks!!! im so excited:) now im just waiting for a RGB cable
When I try to use the disk I wrote on amiga 1200, I get the "unreadable" icon appear, that popped up on yours before the dctv4 appeared a split second later and am unable to access the disk. Any thoughts?
Can't get disks to show in WinUAE --- On startup I get:
"Floppy Disk Bridge Error
Unable to replace DF0: (or DF1:) using GreaseWeazle
GreaseWeazle board was not detected..
Drive DF0: will be disabled and Ignored."
Two things. Of course make sure you've downloaded the latest version of the beta which I'm sure you did. Second, make sure that you run WinUAE with administrative rights. Right click and choose run as administrator. It's the only way it works really well.
You also may want to double check and make sure the grease weasel is showing up on COM 3, and confirm what kind of drive you're using.
@@10MARC
I am on COM 6. What about the 'Configure Floppy Bridge' option ?
Great review Doug and now thanks to your review I feel confident enough to buy one myself.
Keep up the great reviews.
If you have 2 x GW can you set up in WInUAE to have DF0: and DF!:?
I don't think so. It looks like only one drive can be chosen. I bet it would not be impossible to have them code it in if enough people asked. I really like mine and hope to use it a lot.
@@10MARC I did read on Discord recently that Rob Smith was going to do it when he had the time. But it is still uncertain if the controller is available due to all this chip shortage thanks to the China Virus.
How is episode 100 coming along? Just to keep you on your toes.
@@alanhaynes4576 yes... About Episode 100... My Amiga 4000 with my 68060/66 MHz stopped working over a month ago, which was quite upsetting. I had to put it on a shelf since I was concentrating so much on The Amiga Art Contest and AmiWest in October. Last week I put it on the bench and fixed it, so I can continue on with the project!
@@10MARC That is good news Doug that it was able to be fixed. The day will come when they won't unfortunately. That is why modern iterations are so important but I digress. I am looking forward to Episode 100 as there is supposed to be something in it that you mentioned in another episode, possibly 101 that I thought would be very interesting. Sorry for pestering but I am looking forward to it
@@alanhaynes4576 oh? What did you recall was supposed to be in it? I had better make sure I cover it!
You forgot to mention that Keirf's hardware is a simple connector interface that plugs into a Blue Pill. The AmigaKit version appears to be an all-in-one board where the Blue Pill has been put on the same custom PCB. The two are completely different and unless you have a Blue Pill there's little value in ordering the separate interface PCB and building one yourself. Sadly the AmigaKit version is only sold, no open-source version even though the project is open-source. Quite sad.
This review was specifically about the version that Amiga kit and other awesome resellers sell. I know there is a open source version if you want to build your own, and anyone is welcome to do that. Kier is also welcome to monetize his creation and recoup some of the money for all the time and effort that he put into these projects. I 100% support that. To be honest, if somebody did not build this and sell it at their store, I would never build one myself. Remember, taking PCBs and soldering doodads on them to make cool devices is a very niche market, maybe 10 to 15% of the people who really appreciate the amiga have any interest or skill in doing that themselves. On the other hand, they have a very strong interest in going to a storefront, putting one in their cart, ordering it, and just having it work. Luckily, he gave us the best of both worlds. You can build one with your own parts if you want to, or you can buy one pre-made. Best of both worlds.
@@10MARC Actually RobSmiths DrawBridge is a quite interesting alternative. You can build it yourself, but he also developed a custom board wich fits into theese nice external slim PC-USB-Discdrives - wich are available new for about $20. The most compact solution - but a long waiting list (about 2400 people waiting and he produce about 10 per day).
Amiga Kit customer service and ship time still sucks. over two months, no replies to 4 emails but once I disputed the CC charge things start moving.
I hear that a lot. Many irate customers would simply be content if their messages were responded to.
mine formats disks but wont write a adf image to them. please help
There is a very helpful Facebook group where most of the tech support happens. I will go put the link to it in the description. If you don't have Facebook reach out to me via one of my other Social Media accounts.
@@10MARC hello, i tried again, even using new floppys which were packed and brand new. still the same problem. wont write. even covered up the blank hole and still the same problem
@@GurjSagoo make sure you try with a real DSDD disk. HD disks may seem to work when formatted to 880 KB bit cannot be trusted.
will this work with a new pc? or do i need an old pc? thanks....... a pc with a floppy connector onboard? thanks.....
This works fantastic with a new PC. I use it on my Windows 10 laptop just fine
@@10MARC ok thanks but how do i plug in the power and data cables? ? also can this boot into Workbench 1.2? from an Amiga floppy disc? thanks..... yep how do i plug in the power and data cables if the pc is brand new? thanks.....
what is the scp format and why is scp so big for?? like 72 megs ?? thanks
That is a totally raw format that has the actual magnetic flux images in an uncompressed format. Not sure how useful it is, but some tools can actually view the flux as an image onscreen. I have never tried it.
Hello there. I'm a newie in the amiga scene. I hope you can help. Because I search online and it didn't help me understand what's going on... I follow your instructions, but when I try write a adf on a 2HD floppy (with the hole covered) I get this message.
greaseweazle command failed seek track 0 not found
I tried changing drive 0 1 A B and got the same error.
Using high density floppies and trying to format them as double density very seldom works properly. You might get it to format, but those discs that have probably about an 80% failure rate formatted to double density. I think I generally set mine to drive one. Have you had any luck at all using the grease weasel or does it fail every time?
You may want to reach out either to my social media accounts or to my email, which you will find on my TH-cam page under about.
@@10MARC Hey, thank you for the reply. The drive on my greaseweazle is a PC Drive. I was told that it works with regular HD floppies (covering the hole) and the amiga can read those, also since is not possible to buy new DD disk, instead of the 2HD that are still sold new.
Yeah I get that error everytime. I'm sure the greaseweazel work, since I can do bandwich test, and gw info, shows the correct status of my greaseweazel.
I've tried to change the drive select, but It doesn't work either. So now im in the "no idea what to do" I followed many instructions/guides online. But I just don't understand what's wrong.
@@Leon05X You can buy DSDD floppies all day long at floppydisk (dot) com - You might be able to use HD disks, but the way the media is created makes them terribly unreliable. I do not recommend it at all.
There is a really great Facebook page for the Greaseweasel and the Github page.
Have you tried the GUI? I really like "Fluxmyfluffyfloppy" - it is a nice interface.
Feel free to send screenshots of how you have yours set up to any of my Social Media accounts or my email. I will try to help.
@@10MARC Thank you for the reply once again. I more like meant in my country is not possible to buy new DSDD floppies. And buying them outisde is really really expensive (due to tax, and sending fees) yeah Im using both GUI (Flux and GreaseWeazleGUI) I post asking for help in the project discussion page, but he don't reply as nice as you. I sent to you an email :).
@@10MARC I really hope you can help. I have this GreaseWeazel because I was told it could work with regular 2HD floppy disk. Yesterday I've tried to write disk for 8hours, reading testing and changing configs but all I get is the same error... Track 0 Not Found. I have absolutely no idea how to continue. I sent you photos to your email (the one shown in your youtube information) of my GreaseWeazelGUI config to write.
A few years ago, when I still had a SAM460, I bought a Kryoflux to read my pile of Amiga Diskspare formatted 1.98 MB disks. The Kryoflux did not like the SAMs USB hub. So, the Kryoflux was a useless $100 gadget. Does the Greaseweasel read diskspare formatted disks?
No idea - pop on Kiers GitHub and I bet they can answer the question. Or ship me a disk and I will test it!
@@10MARC Since some of the disks had artwork, maybe I'll send them for the 2022 contest 😉
@@phantominterrogative oh I would love that, Royce!
can I use NASP on it though?
Ok... I looked up NASP... Does that stand for "National Association of School Psychologists" or "National Archery in the Schools Program"?
I'm sure it's neither. But I'm also sure I have absolutely no idea what you mean. ;)
@@10MARC 'new amiga sample player'
it's an in-joke from another pocket of the amiga scene I shouldn't have done it really lol
@@xsm5525 oh, OK!
Any thoughts about this message?
C:\gw>gw read test.adf
Reading c=0-79:h=0-1 revs=1.1
Format amiga.amigados
Command Failed: GetFluxStatus: No Index
That is a pretty generic message. I would get that when using a floppy that was not compatible. Has it ever worked with the greaseweazle?
@@10MARC no it has not. But it works at DF1. Weird. Actually I thought Greaseweazle would work with any Floppy
@@10MARC Im using both a Citizen OSDC-45C and the original Chinon from my Amiga 500. Both work on the Amiga.
did you ever get this working im having the same problem