Making my own external Amiga floppy drive?

[linuxlove]

Random idea I had. I'd like to get a second floppy drive on my Amiga 500 since the old SCSI hard drive died but I have no money with which to purchase either a new hard disk or an external floppy drive. I have heard that some PC floppy drives can be modded to work with an Amiga and from what I can see on Tezza's repair entry, it looks as if the cable is a straight shot from the port to the drive, that is, no fancy ICs mounted on the board.

So is this at least theoretically possible? Would be nice to build, I think...

 

[tingo]

Yes, it is possible. Instructions here: http://jope.fi/drives/.
I haven't tried it myself, but when I bought drives for my P112 CP/M machine, I got SFD-321B drives.

 

[Maverick1978]

There's loads of threads on this matter on the various amiga forums as well. It involves switching two i/o lines as well as getting a ready signal, IIRC. Almost any floppy drive can be modded, it's just a matter of determining the solder points where you can switch the pins and where you can pull the ready signal.