The Greaseweasle V4. A USB Amiga floppy reader and writer

[@more.power.]

Thanks Chris I purchased one from Amiga Kit excellent device and great tutorial.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Great to hear!

[@HoldandModify]

Your Amiga Lab looks great! so clean! Great seeing everything. Thank you for this. Yet another video I've added to my "You Big Dummy" sub-folder. I never remember anything anyone tells me.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

I make videos so i dont forget things

[@pete3300]

Ordered one even before the video was over.

[@petarpuskarich3366]

Also for about 125.00 one can also use a Applesauce device for Amiga Adf reading and writing. Will also do many other platform media in both 5.25 and 3.5. I recently used one to create my WB 3.1.4 floppies. I want to get a greaseweazel as well to go along with my Kryoflux that is now ancient too. Good explanation as always sir!

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Ouch. This was 22 usd

[@joelmarcott3282]

Another cool "Amiga Vid" as usual! 👍

[@Cristianovcorp]

Interesting. I have made the Arduino floppy reader writer version. But at this point i want that guy too

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

It's so nice that Amigas nowadays are so much more pleasant to use with the large SD card hard drive* and floppy emulators, not to mention actually affordable accelerators and other new hardware AND software! These things are also out there for other retro systems too. Great time to be a retro computer enthusiast! * Back when I had my Amiga 1200 I paid over $400 for a simple 40 megabyte (yes, megabyte) hard drive enclosure. Hard to believe we can now have hard drives for our Amigas that are 10,000 times larger (literally! 400GB is 10,000 times larger than 40 megabytes) for LESS money. I also paid about $300 for my Amiga 1000 256k (yes, K!) RAM upgrade back in the day. Amazing.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

I love your youtube name!

[@AaronBond007]

Very cool device! Gonna get one!

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Inexpensive too!

[@jimmihenry]

I'm confusion! GreaseweaZle vs. Greaseweasle. Greaseweasle is a beastie mammal slick as an eel, i believe! Greaseweazle is quite versatile and not that expensive flux level floppy disk tool. If you don't have a Arduino and a FTDI to TTL breakout board on hand. If you a Dandy this might be quite handy. Thank you for sharing!

[@johnwells558]

straight on my xmas list…

[@exaturbo]

Just as a FYI, the floppy drive most probably can be powered from the greaseweasel. As most 3.5” drives only require the 5v rail.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Yes i know i Mentioned in the description that I just did not have a power plug for it so I used a regular power supply only 5 V floppies will work big ones that require 12 V will not

[@krecikowi]

Basically, you can FINALLY have WinUAE that will read Amiga floppies (for cheap). If you put UAE under the nice Linux distro to directly boot into Workbench... fastest Amiga EVER :)

[@stephenwhite506]

I'm designing a new device that sits just behind an Amiga's drive inside the Amiga. You interact with it via blue tooth and a cell phone. It lets you create floppy images from disks using the Amiga's drive or copy images back to real floppies. It can also emulate a floppy. So it is like the thing in the video plus a Gotek for less than the price of a Gotek.

[@cullmaster7361]

Thanks for the vid Chris 👍🏻 Keep seeing these being advertised. I’m wondering if this too could be used with a Rapidroad or Spider II USB on a proper Amiga? Might buy one and give it a go 😉

[@10MARC]

The floppy powers 100% from the GreaseWeazle itself via USB. Just plug it in and you will be fine. It probably won't power a 5.25", but 3.5" has zero problems just plugging right into the GW Berg connection

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

I said that in the desc too.

[@ms-ex8em]

i found online a floppy enclosure (box) for it - only thing is will it all fit into the case?? thanks...................

[@timcollins9800]

Good video Chris, but would i be able to play the discs on a Windows PC.I bought a batch Amiga discs some years ago and did not know that you had to have a Amiga to play them.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

works with winUAE so windows yes!

[@crkrjak2001]

I didn't know the Greaseweazle can be used as DF0: in WinUAE! Now I gotta dig mine out again so I can boot up some MKII. Or Zeewolf 2. Or whatever I have on disk. I do have a couple of those old floppy disk storage containers full of magazine cover disks, most still in the original cellophane. I don't have as many floppies as the BAmiga Sector One group made available, but I bet I could make a nice shareable collection of my own. Now if I only had the time...

[@alanhaynes4576]

What version of WInuae did you use and I have tried to go into Expansions/Disk Controllers but it only shows the Catweazle so what did you do? I used the Rob Smith Plugin and accessed through where the floppy drive from 1 to 4 is selected and it worked once but then no more. So something ain't right. Any suggestions? My version of WinUae is 4.9.1 and it is not a beta but a proper release? I did connect the floppy power from the Greaseweazle to the floppy drive and that could be the issue. I will try using its own power supply and see it that makes a difference. Thanks Chris

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

it is a plug in here amiga.robsmithdev.co.uk/winuae but not selected in the disk controllers anymore, it is a drop down in the floppy section, instead of a adf you choose your device.

[@alanhaynes4576]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration good to hear that. It is the same for me now and I think the problem is the power for the disk drive. I will let you know how it goes.

[@chrisliddiard725]

Will this read the Amiga cdrom? Given the power requirement, this would be better suited to adding a floppy to a desktop setup. If it read normal DOS disk as well, that would easily justify this floppy reader since presently its hard to get Windows to recognize a floppy drive. Great to see all this love for the old Amiga.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

It reads disks. The amiga can read iso’s with the mounter already but this is for using floppies

[@chrisliddiard725]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration Thanks.

[@runcmd8851]

I got this a couple of weeks ago to back up boxes on boxes of disks i have and still have. Its been the best things since slice breed. But I got a 4 pin power cable with mine for 5v from the greaseweasle and it works fine for me.. Next Project would be to get someone to 3D print me a case to fit it all in to make it portable. :)

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Theres a new one on thingeverse looks just like an a1010 drive!

[@runcmd8851]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration ill need to check this out..

[@rickdorsey72]

Is it capable of reading/writing Amiga high density disks?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Yup!

[@keirfraser675]

It will read/write them as SCP/HFE currently. It is very easy to add support for HD ADF images too, but I forgot to do it for v0.32. I will add it for v0.33!

[@stephenbruce8320]

I could only find 1 PC Cable and it has one pin plugged so there was no way to use it. So I bought a couple PC Drive cables with no plugged pin holes plus a couple new old stock drives which I was happy I did because the drives I did have need a service but the new drives work like a charm. So my goal is to mount the drive in a PC Case with the Greaseweasle so I don't have to muck around with cables and PSU's all over my desk which is cool for testing but I have too much debris floating around my house. I think I may have an old external Drive Enclosure I can use to mount the 2nd one in to have a portable setup and it may even have a PSU built in it to power a hard drive or optical drive, just need the floppy drive mount and face plate.

[@theadamtron]

I've been having issues with the Greaseweazle v4 - I can image amiga disks perfectly fine. When it comes to writing disks I get a verify error. it doesn't even seem to get going.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Mine was my dang floppy cable! Read fine but wrote like poo. Also depends alot on the drive

[@antoniovanhemert1165]

Maybe I missed it in the video, but can it read also the custom boot amiga floopies?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

It can read any amiga disk. Copy Protected or other

[@antoniovanhemert1165]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration In this case i am kinda golden, providing the discs I have are still in ok condition, but yeah cool!!. Thanks for this video!! And thank you for your reply!

[@piyushkhengar]

Are there any notable differences between this and the Drawbridge from Rob Smith?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Both do the same thing however this isnt as slick . BUT works way better

[@piyushkhengar]

Thanks, Chris. In what ways is it less slick but works better?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

@@piyushkhengar meaning the greaseweasle uses a full size floppy disk drive, either pc hdd or amiga dd, Rob smiths drawbridge is a usb disk with a arduino inside that does the magic. the greaseweasle is easier, but you will need a 3d printed case as the drawbridge is all in one ready to go.

[@piyushkhengar]

Okay, then the Greaseweazel is just as Jesus intended (for me). Thanks, Chris. This is exactly the information I was looking for. I love you.

[@davidpippin3460]

How can we buy the PIMIGA shirt????? Love it

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

A discord member made it for me stainy

[@eatbsreal]

I have an older 5 and a quarter inch drive that I want to use, is this hardware capable of reading content generally on floppies as opposed to strictly Amiga software?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

The device can be used with several programs that can read various types of computer drives

[@timhartherz5652]

Yes but 5 1/4 run on 12V and need a external PSU in any case. You also might have to fiddle with the termination depending on the drive.

[@JustinLittleAdelaide]

Thanks for the video. Great device. I see you have Greaseweazle option in Pimiga 2.0 under expansion setting. I can't seem to get it to boot disks or read disks. Any thoughts?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Device needs to be inserted before power on. Set up in amiberry and save config then f12 reset

[@Justin-dc3mu]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration Thanks for the reply, Tried it but didn't work. Can boot from a PC emulator though. I was using a Pi 400 so I may try a normal Pi 4 next.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

I use it w my 400 and my pi 4/4gb. I choose replace drive dfo more compatible. Remember to tick enabled. Also I quit and choose restart load the configuration without the system running when I added it in and then I save the configuration and click start

[@JustinLittleAdelaide]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration thanks, tried but no luck. I'll get it working in the end. Especially as you've confirmed it does. Another thing to mention is that after a couple of reboots the sd card or hard drive gets corrupted and I need to burn it again. I did try external power for the greaseweazle but no luck. Anyway I'll work it out. Could be a lot of things. Keep up the great work.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

@@JustinLittleAdelaide hop on the discord, i posted videos and stuff in the general chan 930pm 10th dec, or scroll back to that time if you get on later

[@BoardgameLiker]

Why are you always looking at my left ear?! My EYES are over HERE!

[@robinreportsuk]

I just want to get my amiga discs over as ADF files will it do it? I have windows 10

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Sure will! You can even boot them in winuae now

[@robinreportsuk]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration Thank you, when I've got the cash I'll buy one, just didn't want to waste my money. Excellent Cheers (:

[@Reprogrammed_By_SEGA]

Considering a lot of these internal drives are getting old and tired and the only thing you can find new today are external USB Floppy Disk Drives is there a solution for using them?

[@timhartherz5652]

Don't bother, these new Chinese slimline usb drives are junk. There are still sellers on ebay which sell new and refurbished fdd's.

[@LudoRanni]

Hi Chris Merry Chirstmas. I recieved my Greaseweazle a few days ago. It runs perfectly fine with the gui. But in Winua I can't find it under Diskcontrollers, Only the catwaezle form icomp is shown. Floppy Bridge isnt working with my Drive. All variants of options try'd nothing has worked for me... Do I need anything moreto get it working? Thx Man for your Awesome Content ;)

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

you need the latest version of WINUAE HERE www.winuae.net/2021/12/04/winuae-4-9-0/?fbclid=IwAR06N0Ha6peBZHv0Lg1DB5cYGtWAy3G0OXr6-rKJkNlmewi6YZ-mRgt6cIs

[@peoyli]

Was my comment lost in space, or was it offensive to someone ? Sordan is also a reseller of the Greaseweasle and 20E is less than 19L, and has insanely low worldwide shipping rates.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

I see them alll

[@timcollins9800]

Greaseweazle reads disc 100% but goes to blue lines then a blue screen.?I get a message saying one of the fowling Roms is required would that make any difference?And which one do i go for?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

i have no idea, mine just works. I use the desertSage gui, and clicked read... or write... i read and write adfs all the time with it, Winuae can use it as an actual amiga floppy. as i showed

[@ms-ex8em]

but does the drive need extra 12 volts to power up?? wont it just work through usb?? thanks............

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

its usb so 5v, make sure your floppy drive is 5v not 12v

[@Stevieboy74]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestorationI think what he meant was the floppy drive only needs 5 volts power so the USB cable plugged into the PC should have been sufficient, without the additional power cable you were plugging into the disk drive. The greaseweazel board has a small power connector on it so all you need is a small molex power cable that goes from the greaseweazel board and into the disk drive to power it

[@ms-ex8em]

I have an Atari st floppy drive (external) one - but the only thing is the Greaseweasle v4 wont fit inside the case?? please help out thanks..................

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

i 3d printed a case

[@stevemann6082]

thanks for the video. I have a dead a600, can i connect the a600 keyboard to a raspberry pie and bring it back to life as a raspi cased computer ?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

With a keerah

[@harrison78]

How does this compare to a Kryoflux?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

i dont have a cryoflux so i cant tell you for sure, but this is taylored to the amiga, and can read many other formats also.

[@timhartherz5652]

The Kryoflux is even more sophisticated and expensive the GW will do 95% of what the KF can and even supports its raw format. Both read raw flux and don't care about format or filesystem. The KF has a nicer GUI but i would only considerate it only if you are into serious data preservation. For the newer versions you don't need an external power supply for 3 1/2" Floppy drives, you can power them from the GW. Got mine from Amigastore came with cables and everything. Could read even my most problematic floppies.

[@ms-ex8em]

thanks what i’m going to do is buy an amiga external floppy drive and then install this into the drive thanks but can someone show me if the greaseweasle will fit into the drive unit ?? thanks

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

this is not directly for an amiga, but for another device like a pc or linux to use that disk to natively read and write amiga disks for use on a real amiga. or to archive your old disk sets. what you would want for the amiga is a external Gotek usb drive. the floppy emulator that uses usb to store the adf disk images.

[@ms-ex8em]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration yep thanks but im trying to do is to buy a catweasel pci board ?? where do i get one from is it amigakit?? thanks

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

@@ms-ex8em do they even make those anymore?

[@timcollins9800]

If a disc reads less than 100% does that mean it is no good?I have just tried one it says retry that one is no good,only 28% i will bin that one..

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Floppy media for amiga is 25+ years Old. All these disks are hanging on for dear Life by A thread. Hence why the gotek was made

[@timcollins9800]

I get your point there Chris.I have just bought 50 plus discs on eBay for £12 this will be the last time, i am not expecting many to work.I only got a hand full of them to work out of 40 discs.This will be the last time i pay so much for discs.I will only buy if i can get them for next to nothing.

[@SpookyBaron]

I have those pants! Hazaaaa!

[@timcollins9800]

Some of the discs read !00% but stay in blue screen and nothing happens.?Others read 100% sand its says the floppy image is not bootable.I bought 24 discs off eBay i know there was a chance very few would work or if any did work.i did pay £12 for them but they were sold as seen.I had another 20 that i got from a fllea market for £5.I will only buy them if i can get them for next to nothing.I also have a problem python can,t open file. gw py no such file or directory.I will buy amiga forever and get Amiga on a pi5.

[@ms-ex8em]

i’m about to build a new pc how do i install the cat weasel card and is it pci and are they still being sold??

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Catweasle. Wow have not seen one in years. They used to come w a drivers disk. but this is a greaseweasle, a usb plug in for another computer, like a normal PC or linux machine to read and write amiga and other format disks. i am not sure of your question.

[@timcollins9800]

*Should the drive show in Disk management ,?mine does not...One of my drive shows a solid yellow.The other driver does not show any light at all.Both drives work fine on a retro board i am using the same cabal.I open i n terminal it says greaseweazle-1.20-win64-1\greaseweazle-1.20>gw Then is says the term gw is not recognized as the name of cmdlet ,function,script file or operable program.Check check the spelling of the name ,or if a path was included,verify that the path is correct and try again. At line :1 char:1+gw *As you can tell i don,t know how to use or like Terminal. Hope you can help i am confused about all this.Its not simple for me.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

No

[@timcollins9800]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration I did see that on another video it shows as com3.But what about the drives one with no light on ,and the other with a solid light, the cable i used is the same as the one i used to test on the Retro board.The cable is a twisted one with the red strip on the outside of both units.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

@timcollins9800 solid light means your backwards on pin1

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

@timcollins9800 use a straight cable

[@timcollins9800]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration I have put a straight one on there the red strip on the outside of both units.Still solid light,when i put a Amiga disc in it makes a noise not the case for a PC one.Open in terminal ps c users greaseweazle-1.20>cmd press that on the next line i type gw. then says *gw is not recognized as an internal or external or external command ,operable program or batch file.

[@ms-ex8em]

the greaseweasle v4 - how does it work what software programs do i need for it?? thanks............

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

I tell you in the video, click play!

[@1invag]

Can't for the life of me find an appropriate winuae beta for this to work, any tips would be appreciated? It's up and running winuae floppy access aside

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

It’s in the main branch now

[@1invag]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration Ok thank you. I must be doing something wrong, only in option selectable for me is catweasle

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

@@1invag here : www.winuae.net/2021/12/04/winuae-4-9-0/

[@bobrandale4864]

I get a "Command Failed: GetFluxStatus: No Index" error message when reading the Install 2.1 disk. Any ideas on this? The gw light was red the entire time, and when running the command a green light came on for a couple seconds. I do not have power connected via molex; could that be it?

[@keirfraser675]

Is your drive powered by some other means? The drive does need to be powered via its power input.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

The creator Himself! Thanks for all you do sir!

[@bobrandale4864]

@@keirfraser675 Thanks, but not yet. My mind stalled on the board getting its power through the USB". Now I'm clearing off my desk to get to the desktop cover and see what's inside so I can pull out the power for it... Thanks again; love all your efforts/work on these projects!

[@riemerpoelstra3198]

@@keirfraser675 I've tried 4 amiga floppy drives and still get the error "Command Failed: GetFluxStatus: No Index". I bought the kit from AmigaKit and it's powered by the board itself...

[@keirfraser675]

@@riemerpoelstra3198You need a straight ribbon cable and specify "--drive=0" to the gw tool (or select drive 0 in any GUI wrapper)

[@stevelaminack1516]

I know your machines are opened and closed a lot. Do you take the RF shield off and leave it off. Do you think it's OK to do that?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

They are out of all my units that have them except one

[@RetroJay1974]

I am having some fun/issues trying to get one of these running on an old laptop with windows 7 x64. No matter what I do nothing will work, it is driving me mad! I may just wipe the laptop and put windows 10 x64 on it instead. Anyone using windows 7 at all? or is it just better to go windows 10 or linux?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Its usually down to a cable type. Try several

[@RetroJay1974]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration I will do. I have quite a lot of old stuff hoarded away. I am about to try a different machine just to see if it works as is. EDIT: Success! I moved the greaseweazle and teac drive to another machine that is running windows 10 x64 and it is working! winuae is working with it also :)

[@RetroJay1974]

I am back! I feel cursed at the moment, I seem to have hit another brick wall when attempting to read a zx spectrum formatted disk! the disk was not in good shape and I did clean it the best I could. The disk drive squealed like mad and from that moment on, the greaseweazle will not longer read anything. I swapped out the disk drive. I then tried a known good Amiga disk, total failure as it refuses to read anything. I am going to try powering the disk drive from an external power source and rule that out!

[@pawek.9427]

Chris, are you using USB floppy drive connected directly to USB port (no Greaseweasle) and reading floppy disk? Of course on PiMiga. I'm working on similar project, and Amiberry emulator is unable to read/write USB floppy disks in real-time and processing CPU Instructions, so whole emulation is suspended till data will arrive to the emulator from floppy. Maybe you know how can I modify Amiberry to fix this? For now I'm just disabling the sound during floppy reading kzbin.info/www/bejne/naupdp-fprGamdE kzbin.info/www/bejne/oaCniqdpfcR6o6M

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

no i use the greaseweasle,. i also did a video on the rob smith drawbridge which is a usb floppy drive with an audrino on it with some code

[@TheSulross]

but, of course, what we really want to know is why its called Greaseweasle

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

A pun on the catweasle. The original hardware from back in the day