How to Set Up Roland W30 Without Floppy Drive?

[drew]

Hey guys! I'm Drew, a songwriter from San Diego, CA, and I am excited/a little intimidated by my new Roland W30!

After getting SMFW30, and burning some disk images (which sounded great), my floppy drive took a dive and began to read "Disk Load Error...08" (or 10 or 18 depending on disk inserted) and now I cannot even start up the keyboard 

So, I've been researching, and it looks like I can use a SCSI Zip/Hard Drive or I can connect a Floppy Emulator direct to floppy drive....which is better? It's a little more expensive for emulator, so I'm wondering about cost for SCSI...although I've seen demonstrations from Ricoche for the emulator that it will work for sure. 

What about ZIP drive? Is it true that you cannot load system disks from SCSI ZIP? Can you load from a SCSI hard drive, and if so, which one is best or workable? Is emulator still best?

A lot of questions, but I am a noobie, and eager to get this going as I really started liking this keyboard!

Thanks everyone! Drew

[miro]

Hi Drew,

I am on the quest for the best replacement of floppy for W30 already long time. Currently I am using HXC floppy emulator http://hxc2001.free.fr/ and SCSI hdd when necessary. To sum it up SCSI stuff cannot be easily built into the W30 and I like my stuff neat  . For the moment HXC2001 is probaly easiest option to go with. Here are some pics of my attempt to put it inside of W30:

my W30 disassembled
W30 floppy holder chassis
HxC in W30
HxC in W30 - closeup
HxC built in W30
HxC built in W30 - closeup

It is not yet perfect but you get an idea. I am planning to make a benchmark between SCSI and floppy emul. In the span of time I plan to add support for HFE images in SMFW30. If I will have really veeery much spare time (very improbable but one never know) I want to build project of Michael Bauerle (http://micha.freeshell.org/pcmcia_drive/index.php). If W30 can boot from this device I will probably try to place it somehow inside.

regards

Miro

[Ricoche]

Hi Drew,

Like Miro mentioned, the HxC Floppy Drive Emulator is the only way I know of to boot the Roland W30 without a properly working floppy drive.  Unfortunately if you bought the W30 for cheap, it's an added investment getting the HxC.  On the bright side it's about the same price as a replacement floppy drive anyway if you find one.  If I had a choice I'd get the HxC over the original floppy given that I can boot and store many floppy disks on one SD card.  It's likely that if you end up getting the replacement floppy drive, you'll eventually want the HxC for the much added convenience provided you use the W30 a lot.

Jim

[drew]

Thanks guys! This helped a lot, and now I have installed the HxC SD Card Emulator...just got the first bank going, it works! I'll now have to try other sounds, but so far so good! I have more questions to come soon 

[miro]

That is nice to hear . I think we should put detailed how-to section with our experiences. Maybe here on the forum?

[nick]

Hi Guys

Just read through the post, and looks like I'll be getting one HxC as I'm about to replaced the floppy drive for the 3rd time and it's getting a little frustrating.

I was wondering if anyone has experience with these = SFRM72-FU-DL USB Floppy Drive?
There very cheap (around £30\$50) and format at 720k and I can see jumpers onboard to hopefully choose between drive A and B. However even though £30 isn't much but I don't want to buy to find it doesn't work.
Please see = http://www.amazon.co.uk/SFRM72-FU-DL-Floppy-Drive-Emulator-Gray/dp/B00C4PTOJM

What does everyone think?

Cheers

Nick

[nick]

Infact I might just bite the bullet and spend £100 on the below as it's said to be working on the W30. ooo Lots of money


 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=171208463914

Thanks

[nick]

Guys regarding the HxC, How is the memory card formatted? Is it just fat32, pop into my pc, and manually drag and drop disk .IMG files onto it? or is there software designed for this which imports W-30 IMG files onto the memory card?

Tar

Nick

[miro]

Hi Nick,

SD cards are formatted as FAT32 of course. However you need to convert 720k images (*.img, *.sdk, *.out, *.w30) into hfe files otherwise they will be not recognized by the emulator. Check this page http://smfw30.svetlik.be/forum/index.php/topic,177.msg274.html#msg274 I have created small script to make this conversion easier. I am working on HFE support for SMFW30 as well.

Miro

[nick]

Hi Miro

That's great thanks, answered my question and have a solution

Nick