Q) What ST does it fit on ?
A) Any ST/E/F/FM.
Q) How do I fit it ?
A) Basically to remove the floppy controller (WD1772) and fit the floppy board there.
Q) Do I have to buy the drive or can I use any drive ?
A) You can use any drive, BUT, you will need to convert it to drive 0 as most PC drive as hardwired to drive 1 which won't work at all. It is impossible to say how to alter this on everydrive, some you simply can't. We modify the drive and fit the high density wire to it also. Even so, not many PC drive support extended tracks and sectors so be warned!
Q) What drives do you use ?
A) We only use SONY MPF920 drives now. After the amount of drives we tested this drive comes out on tops from all the rest.
Q) I heard not all WD1772's will work with highdensity drives ?
A) Not all WD1772's will. We have tried a few STE machines and they seem to have a new version which is of course fine. Some older ST's such as the very first ones with the "brick style" floppy drive may not work. The best version is the WD1772 02 -02 device. Not all of these will work but most of them seem to be OK.
Q) Do I have to Boot of a floppy ?
A) No. The kit does not require and software to function.
Q) Can I boot from 1.44 discs ?
A) Yes.
Q) Does it support external 1.44 drives ?
A) Yes.
Q) Can I still use my old external 720K drive ?
A) Yes.
Q) Why such a high price for the kit ?
A) The kit is cheaper than most 1.44 kits already. A lot of work went into design and development of it. It may look simple but thats because we took the time and effort to make it simple! Cost of parts is mainly responsible for the kits price.
Q) Where will you ship to ?
A) We will ship anywhere in the world. Please note that postage could be expensive in some parts of the world.
Q) How do I buy one ?
A) If you are in the U.K. Then you can send a cheque. If outside the UK then please E-mail for details.
Q) How long will it take to fit ?
A) Depends. It could take upto a hour to just dismantle the ST. Fitting can take about a hour also. It will probably take most people around 3 hours in all to fit. If your quick you could probably shave that down to a hour.
Q) Do I have to Solder in the board ?
A) Yes, there is no easy solution to making hardware modifications.
Q) I heard some TOS versions won't work ?
A) TOS 1.0 and TOS 1.2 come out with random disc errors which we currently don't know why. It seems to have been however fixed in TOS 1.4 and over.
Q) How do I format 1.44 discs ?
A) Either use pre-formatted 1.44 discs or use a good formatter program such as Ecopy.
Q) How can it work without software to patch TOS to use 1.44 discs ?
A) The board is designed to ignore the ST's seek-rate and step-rate commands. The board itself changes these commands to the WD1772 and thus does not need any special software to work.