Gotek Help

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Thread: Gotek Help

  1. #1
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    Default Gotek Help

    Hey guys. I have a 95 VF0 that came with a Gotek emulator in it. It is just a 20 dollar plastic nothing special Gotek emulator. I am able to load nc files on a USB stick that has no special formatting (fat 32 format no partitions) and plug it into the machine, call up the program number plus nc and hit F3 and it loads the program perfectly every time. I recently got a 03 VF1 that also has a Gotek in it that is clearly not set up the same as the older machine. It wont load programs at all. Control just says file not found. I understand that the common way to use these emulators is to load files on to a USB thats formatted to have 100 or so files at 1.44mb and the process is several steps to actually get the program on to the control. I dont want to have to deal with all that. I took the Gotek out of the old machine and installed it in the 03 and it works just the same as on the older machine. So I suspect this older Gotek has a firmware change or some kind of internal setup that allows it to basically work as a "pass through" USB port. I have already gotten a new Gotek, put flashfloppy firmware on it, tried multiple jumper settings, etc, and still not having any luck getting the new Gotek to operate like the old one. My question is does anyone have a way to set up a new Gotek to work as I described that my older one does? Clearly I am overthinking this and or doing something wrong.

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  2. #2
    Member Mad_Buddha_Abuser's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gotek Help

    I know this is a little old but maybe I can help. I found this file earlier(attached). I havent had a chance to try it yet and I assume its for a windows computer. Its a small no frills command line utility to format a usb as a floppy. I have no idea if it works lol.

    I use linux so I have the tools I need to create what I need on my computer. If you use linux or a macbook its very easy. Plug your usb in then open up a terminal. Find out what the computer is calling the usb drive by typing-
    Code:
    lsblk
    Heres what I get when I do lsblk with a 4 gig flash drive insterted
    Code:
    sda      8:0       0    465.8G    0     disk 
    ??sda1   8:1       0    260M      0     part /boot/efi
    ??sda2   8:2       0    451.8G    0     part /
    ??sda5   8:5       0    13.7G     0     part /home/buddha/Downloads
    sdb      8:16      1    3.7G      0     disk /media/buddha/DBA4-3A1A
    Usually the first usb drive will be called /dev/sdb but it could be different. Next just copy and paste the following (make sure to change /dev/sdb to whatever it is on your machine) Also commands are case sensitive. No caps!
    Code:
    sudo umount /dev/sdb ;
    mkfs.fat -C "blank-floppy.img" 1440;
    sudo dd bs=512 count=2880 if=blank-floppy.img of=/dev/sdb;
    Thats it. In case it interests you or anyone else whats happening there is summarized as follows: First, sudo runs the program umount as admin/root to unmount the device sdb from any filesystem it may be connected to (notice the command is umount, not unmount). Next The mkfs command creates a file which is really just a tiny filesystem with a size of 1440 bytes(the size of a floppy) and those bytes are arranged as a FAT filesystem. Next sudo runs the program dd as administrator to take the image file "blank-floppy.img" and kind-of super imposes it over the file or device specified at "of=/dev/sdb". It does this with 2880 blocks of 512 bytes just like a floppy. The difference doing it this way is the drive will actually only have a 1.44 mb capacity after you do this. Even if its a 2 terabyte drive. It will be a 1.44MB disk as far as your haas is concerned. It will stay that way until you repartition the drive or let windows even scan it.

    Its not at first intuitive or logical the way filesystem images work and this leads to major frustration when you have to deal with a floppy emulator because its not readily apparent why simply formatting the flash drive as a FAT filesystem wont work. But it wont. It has to either have the capacity of a single floppy or present multiple floppy images to the gotek emulator from which it can choose.

    Im not a hardened expert on these emulators but this is what I do and it works for us. Beware of windows trying to scan and fix the usb drive every time you put it in. Dont ever allow it to even scan it or youll have to redo the above. It will "fix" the partition table to reflect the true capacity - which destroys the delicate veil of bull**** which we have so delicately erected.

    I hope this helps somebody out there!



  3. #3

    Default Re: Gotek Help

    I have 2 identical machines .. same GOtek on both .. works fine one one but never can get it to work on the other ... I have replaced it and usb drives and It always gives errors ..
    All i can figure is something is wrong with the control floppy interface .. Ended up using RS232 works great and is faster anyways

    2x 1997 HAAS VF3 , Hitachi seiki 3NE , TAKISAWA MAC-V410


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