Gotek not working suddenly on my Amiga 1000

[Holmes]

Recently, I switched on my Amiga 1000, with an internal Gotek floppy emulator. The Gotek didn't work! It was working perfectly about 6 months ago, and has been sitting on my desk under a home-made computer cover. I have a dedicated USB drive for it, and just leave it in there.

So a little history. I flashed the Gotek with the original Cortex firmware a while back, and never got around to updating it. I mounted it internally to the Amiga 1000, and put in a switch which allows me to select if I want to use the internal floppy or the Gotek. I also soldered on extension wires to the remote components (USB port, 2 buttons, LED 7-segment display, etc). I mounted these into holes cut in my Amiga 1000 case.

The Gotek is mounted under the large shield inside the A1000.

So when I turned on the Amiga, the display of the Gotek would show "001" sometimes, then switch to "---", I pressed the buttons, removed the USB, reinserted the USB, and still didn't get much other than this. It would not boot or recognize anything from the Gotek. I switched it to the internal floppy (using the switch I built into the mod), and I could boot off the internal floppy just fine. Everything else with the Amiga worked fine, just not the Gotek.

So I removed the Gotek, reflashed it with the latest FlashFloppy, and it worked. I plugged it in, and it works perfectly. Thus, the Gotek does not seem to be permanently damaged.

So it seems the Gotek spontaneously corrupted its firmware? Has this happened to anyone else? I wonder if a static discharge found its way to the Gotek (through the USB port with the USB drive in it), and this somehow corrupted the flash memory on the Gotek. I guess it's possible. Other than this, the Gotek is sitting safe inside the A1000, securely mounted to the heavy shield.

Any thoughts?

On the plus side, it gave me an excuse to upgrade my Gotek to FlashFloppy, and to add the other nice upgrades (rotary encoder, OLED display, and sound mod). I'm loving it now, and it's much more usable.

 

[Dwight Elvey]

Many of the cheaper Goteks use factory second parts. The flash just forgets on it own. I've been fiddling with the processor on the Gotek and find that after a few months mine forgets stuff and needs to be reflashed. Flash memory still depends on a floating gate, like an EPROM. The charge can leak off over time. How much time is the issue.
I'd been fiddling with them to understand why they had issues with hard sectored disk. That is not related to the retention of Flash but how fast one can transfer data from the USB. The one I have is a cheap one. You'll likely find that it will need reflashing every now and then.
Dwight

 

[Holmes]

Many of the cheaper Goteks use factory second parts. The flash just forgets on it own. I've been fiddling with the processor on the Gotek and find that after a few months mine forgets stuff and needs to be reflashed. Flash memory still depends on a floating gate, like an EPROM. The charge can leak off over time. How much time is the issue.
I'd been fiddling with them to understand why they had issues with hard sectored disk. That is not related to the retention of Flash but how fast one can transfer data from the USB. The one I have is a cheap one. You'll likely find that it will need reflashing every now and then.
Dwight

Thanks for the info.

I just looked at some of my old records, and it looks like I originally flashed my Gotek around the end of 2014, so it's lasted about 4 years. I never knew there were different grades of Goteks. I figured they were all knock-offs.

This is a pain for me, since my Gotek is internal to my A1000. Removing that internal shield takes removing around 20 screws.

Thanks again! It sounds like something most of us Gotek owners will need to deal with sooner or later.

 

[rittwage]

I know the Cortex used to have problems where it would freak out and need reflashed, or the USB stick would need reformatted. I don't know if it was the firmware or the hardware, or both. I haven't had that happen with FlashFloppy yet.