I can't speak to Flash Floppy since I still use Gotek's standard firmware. However, using USB Floppy Manager v1.40i, I have no problems with much of anything. I use a standard 64GB flash drive that I formatted using the Floppy Manager software right in Windows 10, but I've never tried doing via the Gotek.

Windows 10 file manager sees the formatted USB drive as a single 1.44MB disk (the first drive in the list "000"). Windows disk manager will see it as a full FAT partition. I only use 10 disks since I rarely need more than that, but it can indeed do up to 100. All of the disks will only show up in the Floppy Manager software.

StriderTR wrote on Yesterday, 17:43:

I can't speak to Flash Floppy since I still use Gotek's standard firmware. However, using USB Floppy Manager v1.40i, I have no problems with much of anything. I use a standard 64GB flash drive that I formatted using the Floppy Manager software right in Windows 10, but I've never tried doing via the Gotek.

Windows 10 file manager sees the formatted USB drive as a single 1.44MB disk (the first drive in the list "000"). Windows disk manager will see it as a full FAT partition. I only use 10 disks since I rarely need more than that, but it can indeed do up to 100. All of the disks will only show up in the Floppy Manager software.

Yeah, that's how things are set up on mine, too. When I put it into my Gotek afterwards, it just said 'error'. My main sticking point at the moment is figuring out how to create image files. Just plugged the USB back into my PC and it's now recognising it correctly and has an empty config file.

EDIT: Trying to use HDD Raw Copy Tool certainly doesn't do it properly and also makes USB Floppy Manager crash as it can no longer read it right.

Yeah, not having much luck at all. I've tried dragging and dropping the file in WinImage and then saving it, but it only saves as a IMA file, not IMG. And even then, when I've accessed the file in Explorer, the file is still showing as an application. If I try and load 000 in USB Manager, it just tells me access is denied. And plugging the drive into the Gotek just gives me Error 34. 🙁

DustyShinigami wrote on Yesterday, 18:46:

Yeah, not having much luck at all. I've tried dragging and dropping the file in WinImage and then saving it, but it only saves as a IMA file, not IMG. And even then, when I've accessed the file in Explorer, the file is still showing as an application. If I try and load 000 in USB Manager, it just tells me access is denied. And plugging the drive into the Gotek just gives me Error 34. 🙁

Hmm...

You probably know this already, but...

To load an image file, it's just a right click in the manager.

To copy files, double click the disk, opens explorer, copy files, go back to manager and select "Save".

I use WinImage 8.5 (works on Win10) to create floppy images. It creates .IMZ files, but the Floppy Manager software can read/write it just fine, as the GoTek has no issues with it. Just have to select "all files" since it looks for .IMG.

Does any of that help? Or am I completely missing the point? 🤣

Sadly, I'm off to work. Good luck! Seems you're on the right track.

StriderTR wrote on Yesterday, 19:07:

Hmm... […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on Yesterday, 18:46:

Yeah, not having much luck at all. I've tried dragging and dropping the file in WinImage and then saving it, but it only saves as a IMA file, not IMG. And even then, when I've accessed the file in Explorer, the file is still showing as an application. If I try and load 000 in USB Manager, it just tells me access is denied. And plugging the drive into the Gotek just gives me Error 34. 🙁

Hmm...

You probably know this already, but...

To load an image file, it's just a right click in the manager.

To copy files, double click the disk, opens explorer, copy files, go back to manager and select "Save".

I use WinImage 8.5 (works on Win10) to create floppy images. It creates .IMZ files, but the Floppy Manager software can read/write it just fine, as the GoTek has no issues with it. Just have to select "all files" since it looks for .IMG.

Does any of that help? Or am I completely missing the point? 🤣

Sadly, I'm off to work. Good luck! Seems you're on the right track.

Thanks for the advice. I'll give it a go later. 😀 I think I'm using an older version of WinImage, which I saw recommended by someone in an old thread here. That would probably explain the lack of file type options available.

StriderTR wrote on Yesterday, 19:07:

Hmm... […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on Yesterday, 18:46:

Yeah, not having much luck at all. I've tried dragging and dropping the file in WinImage and then saving it, but it only saves as a IMA file, not IMG. And even then, when I've accessed the file in Explorer, the file is still showing as an application. If I try and load 000 in USB Manager, it just tells me access is denied. And plugging the drive into the Gotek just gives me Error 34. 🙁

Hmm...

You probably know this already, but...

To load an image file, it's just a right click in the manager.

To copy files, double click the disk, opens explorer, copy files, go back to manager and select "Save".

I use WinImage 8.5 (works on Win10) to create floppy images. It creates .IMZ files, but the Floppy Manager software can read/write it just fine, as the GoTek has no issues with it. Just have to select "all files" since it looks for .IMG.

Does any of that help? Or am I completely missing the point? 🤣

Sadly, I'm off to work. Good luck! Seems you're on the right track.

Nope. Still no luck. 🙁 Added the file in WinImage 8.5. Tried saving it as both IMA and IMZ. If I try IMZ, it says the file format of the image isn't FAT12. The Batch Manager only formats it to FAT. I don't even have an option for FAT32. If I confirm anyway, it just says 'n/a'. If I add an IMA file, it supposedly adds it, but once I insert it into the Gotek, it just keeps saying Error 34. I can only assume it's because it needs to be FAT32...? But as I say, there's no option to specify in the Batch Manager.

So I don't even know if I'm creating the image files correctly or using the right tool.

Can't say this Gotek FlashFloppy is proving to be a worthwhile investment. 😒 Just tried creating an IMG file of the file I need using ImgBurn. Someone said in a GitHub comments section not to use the USB Floppy Manager. That you should just copy and paste the image file directly in Explorer. Well, I tried that, plugged it into the Gotek, and that gives me Error 31.

And here I am burning CDs for every few files 😀

No experience with those things. Considered buying one but then it seems there is a bunch of extra steps like you describe that you need to do, which to me seems clumsy....I'd just like my floppy please

Have you tried a different USB drive?

First off, ignore the USB Floppy Manager, that's for the Gotek's original firmware.

For FlashFloppy, just format the USB flash drive as FAT32, you can use Windows (or any other operating system) for that. Then put the floppy image files into the root directory of the USB drive with extension .IMG. For PC 1440KB floppies, this is just a raw image of exactly 1474560B. Don't think ImgBurn is suitable program, looks like that's for optical disc images.

Error 31, according the wiki means "Bad Image File: The selected image is invalid or unsupported". Try with a known working floppy image first like the FreeDOS floppy edition.

bertrammatrix wrote on Today, 00:34:

And here I am burning CDs for every few files 😀

No experience with those things. Considered buying one but then it seems there is a bunch of extra steps like you describe that you need to do, which to me seems clumsy....I'd just like my floppy please

Have you tried a different USB drive?

Yeah, tell me about it. And as is usually the case for me and my family, nothing is ever a smooth and easy process. 😬😅

At the moment I can’t use any USB drive. It’s the drivers for the controller I’m trying to transfer over before I can use my pen drive and transfer all the goodies across, such as drivers, software, patches etc. I’ll probably just wait until I get a new floppy drive for this case, or re-try at getting my old one working. I had issues with getting the CD-ROM to be recognised, but managed it in the end, so I should hopefully be able to get it working right.

jtchip wrote on Today, 00:59:

First off, ignore the USB Floppy Manager, that's for the Gotek's original firmware.

For FlashFloppy, just format the USB flash drive as FAT32, you can use Windows (or any other operating system) for that. Then put the floppy image files into the root directory of the USB drive with extension .IMG. For PC 1440KB floppies, this is just a raw image of exactly 1474560B. Don't think ImgBurn is suitable program, looks like that's for optical disc images.

Error 31, according the wiki means "Bad Image File: The selected image is invalid or unsupported". Try with a known working floppy image first like the FreeDOS floppy edition.

Okay, thanks for the advice. I’ll give that a go later after work. If not using the USB Floppy Manager though, how do you access the 80-100 disks? Just dropping the files on sounds like it would be treated as just a single disk…? And if not ImgBurn, what would be a suitable program to use? It’s the only one I have installed that gives the option to create an IMG file. WinImage only seems to do IMA and IMZ.

I just got my GoTek a few weeks ago and haven't played with any "special
features" a whole lot yet.
I've NOT updated the firmware, whats there works fine for what I need.

I simply wanted a floppy drive that I could use a lot while testing certain
things which didn't need actual floppies and didn't place wear on the ones I
have (getting hard to find these days).

I played briefly with what software that appears to be avaible for it that I
could find ... but most of it didn't seem to actually do anything special with
the unit.

So... I just use the front panel buttons to format new USB sticks, and to
select which FDD appears during a session. Other that that, I simply use it
like a floppy drive!

It's mostly used on DOS systems, and I format/write disks to it exactly as I
would under DOS - I also use my own tools: FDI to manage disk images, XDISK
to read/write DOS images, and ImageDisk to read/write non-DOS stuff.

Under Winblows it still looks like any other floppy.
I can also run FDI within DosBox, and use a little tool called DSKWRTIE to
write images directly to it. It's also convient that the 1st floppy image
show up and can be accessed directly by just accessing the USB stick (without
the GoTek)

So far I'm fairly happy with it, it does almost everything I want. It would be
nice if it could do other floppy types (5" & 8" flavors, non-PC etc.) - I may
eventually build something to do that - but we're lucky some people still know
what 3.5" floppies are these days!

jtchip wrote on Today, 00:59:

First off, ignore the USB Floppy Manager, that's for the Gotek's original firmware.

For FlashFloppy, just format the USB flash drive as FAT32, you can use Windows (or any other operating system) for that. Then put the floppy image files into the root directory of the USB drive with extension .IMG. For PC 1440KB floppies, this is just a raw image of exactly 1474560B. Don't think ImgBurn is suitable program, looks like that's for optical disc images.

Error 31, according the wiki means "Bad Image File: The selected image is invalid or unsupported". Try with a known working floppy image first like the FreeDOS floppy edition.

+1

There's also a config file (FF.CFG) and a "last image used" file (IMAGE_A.CFG), I remember.

They can be found here, please note but this is from 2018: Re: FlashFloppy, an open source firmware for Gotek drives

Newer files are probably available at the Github site of Flash Floppy firmware.
Just download the ZIP file and move the two files to the root of the USB Pen drive.

Edit: They seem to be in examples folder (FF.CFG, IMG.CFG)..
https://github.com/keirf/flashfloppy

For formatting USB flash drives to FAT32 (as an alternative to the OS) the SD Formatter utility can be used, maybe.
It normally uses FAT32 for SD cards, unless they're very big maybe and then exFAT is used ?

Edit: IMA and IMG often is same thing for floppy images.
If Flash Floppy doesn't like the extension, renaming might help.

Jo22 wrote on Today, 10:10:

+1 […]
Show full quote

jtchip wrote on Today, 00:59:

First off, ignore the USB Floppy Manager, that's for the Gotek's original firmware.

For FlashFloppy, just format the USB flash drive as FAT32, you can use Windows (or any other operating system) for that. Then put the floppy image files into the root directory of the USB drive with extension .IMG. For PC 1440KB floppies, this is just a raw image of exactly 1474560B. Don't think ImgBurn is suitable program, looks like that's for optical disc images.

Error 31, according the wiki means "Bad Image File: The selected image is invalid or unsupported". Try with a known working floppy image first like the FreeDOS floppy edition.

+1

There's also a config file (FF.CFG) and a "last image used" file (IMAGE_A.CFG), I remember.

They can be found here, please note but this is from 2018: Re: FlashFloppy, an open source firmware for Gotek drives

Newer files are probably available at the Github site of Flash Floppy firmware.
Just download the ZIP file and move the two files to the root of the USB Pen drive.

Edit: They seem to be in examples folder (FF.CFG, IMG.CFG)..
https://github.com/keirf/flashfloppy

For formatting USB flash drives to FAT32 (as an alternative to the OS) the SD Formatter utility can be used, maybe.
It normally uses FAT32 for SD cards, unless they're very big maybe and then exFAT is used ?

Edit: IMA and IMG often is same thing for floppy images.
If Flash Floppy doesn't like the extension, renaming might help.

Okay. Thanks for the suggestions. 🙂 I’ll check out SD Formatter. And give renaming the extension a try.

I did notice at least one of those files were added to the root of the pen drive - the config one - but when I last checked it was empty. I’ll try copying those files directly.

DaveDDS wrote on Today, 10:02:

I just got my GoTek a few weeks ago and haven't played with any "special features" a whole lot yet. I've NOT updated the firmwa […]
Show full quote

I just got my GoTek a few weeks ago and haven't played with any "special
features" a whole lot yet.
I've NOT updated the firmware, whats there works fine for what I need.

I simply wanted a floppy drive that I could use a lot while testing certain
things which didn't need actual floppies and didn't place wear on the ones I
have (getting hard to find these days).

I played briefly with what software that appears to be avaible for it that I
could find ... but most of it didn't seem to actually do anything special with
the unit.

So... I just use the front panel buttons to format new USB sticks, and to
select which FDD appears during a session. Other that that, I simply use it
like a floppy drive!

It's mostly used on DOS systems, and I format/write disks to it exactly as I
would under DOS - I also use my own tools: FDI to manage disk images, XDISK
to read/write DOS images, and ImageDisk to read/write non-DOS stuff.

Under Winblows it still looks like any other floppy.
I can also run FDI within DosBox, and use a little tool called DSKWRTIE to
write images directly to it. It's also convient that the 1st floppy image
show up and can be accessed directly by just accessing the USB stick (without
the GoTek)

So far I'm fairly happy with it, it does almost everything I want. It would be
nice if it could do other floppy types (5" & 8" flavors, non-PC etc.) - I may
eventually build something to do that - but we're lucky some people still know
what 3.5" floppies are these days!

I’m still not sure if I’m going about reformatting directly with the Gotek properly. I read you press both small buttons at the same time, and it came up with something to do with ‘reformat’, but then nothing else seemed to happen. Tried pressing the buttons and moving the dial. Didn’t seem to be any indication it actually did anything.

The "two button pressed" combination is also used for firmware updates (Flash Floppy firmware), so be careful.
It should merely appear when its done at power-up, though.

Jo22 wrote on 28 minutes ago:

The "two button pressed" combination is also used for firmware updates (Flash Floppy firmware), so be careful.
It should merely appear when its done at power-up, though.

Ahh, okay. Although I did see a separate option within the device's options for firmware updating. Along with factory reset etc.