These 3½" & 5¼" Floppy Disc Drives are not the original Amstrad standardyet the media and drives were far cheaper so they were common especially when used as a 2nd drive.
Yet they During the lifetime of the CPC both drives were far cheaper advertised in UK magazines with the 3½" becoming much more common in it's later years due to it's use in the PC. In Germany 5¼" were advertised and are nowadays easier well supported by Vortex for much longer. Magazines also promoted the use of these drives especially with the use of another DOS or C/PM to be able to usetheir full capacity.
Especially the Both 3½" as these disk are still availlable in some retailers. You can also easily find such & 5¼" drives in any garbage if you properly scavenge old rusty computerswere often double sided and supported double density and high density although the Amstrad could only support Double Density.
These Disks couldn't be side switched manuallyNowadays the 5¼" drives are hard to find and are expensive, media is not made anymore and new-old-stock media is also hard to find.The older models used only one side (360 KB)Double side (DD) or even High Density were available3½" drives can be found from old PC computers and there is still a read supply of new-old-stock media.
==Formats ==Increasingly however it is often easier to use a disc drive emulator or one of the devices that can run games from SD cards.
3"1/2==Comparison of media costs==
*DD = 720KB3" disc (each) - £3.99*HD : 1,44 MB3.5" disc (each) - 50p5.25" disc (each) - 50p
5"1/4==Usage of Media==
*er...I don't remember (editors please ?)*1,2 Mo was To make full use of the maximum...capacity of the media you need to use another DOS or C/PM on my old PC.your CPC which can support more tracks and two sides.Then you can use around 720KB per disc.
Without another DOS you can still use some of the capacity:
* 3½" discs can't be turned like 3" discs therefore with [[AMSDOS|AMSDOS]] you can use a manual side switch to choose the sides giving 2 x 178KB per side. Without the side switch it's just 178KB. Using discs like this back in the day was still useful as the media was cheaper.
* 5¼" discs can be turned over like a 3" and you can write both sides if you cut a write protect hole on the other side of each disc OR like the 3½" a manual side switch can be used.
[[image:3.5.jpg|200px|thumb|Internal 3.5" drive]]
[[image:5,25_cable.jpg|200px|thumb|advertisement for 5,25" drive cable for CPC in 1990]]
==Scavenged 3½"==
It is worth noting that 3½" scavenged from PCs will lack the drive selection and ready signal. Often these drives will need a modification to make them useable OR you can make sure the drive motor is always on.
==Common PC Formats ==
3½":
*DD = 720KB
*HD : 1,44 MB
5¼":
*DD = 360KB
*HD = 1.2MB
== Beware : HD ==
Nowaday, only HD 3the most common 3½"1/2 disk is HD. These can be found at good as used or new old retailer'sstock on auction sites.
But or our beloved CPC can't understand easily the concept of High Density Disk with 1,44MB avalaibleavailable... so you have to cheat to use the media: just put some opaque duct-tape (scotch-tape, whatever...) on the HD Hole.
So you have to cheat : just put some duct-tape (scotch-tape, whatever...) on the HD Hole.Tada, a proper the drive will think DD disk with 720 KB if your OS allows media is used and now it.Or a common 2x180KB (2x 178KB ?) with firmware Loco Basic, if you have a manual side switcher button too of course)'s usable.
PC users used to do the opposite : cut/drill a HD hole on DD disk...this worked well sometimes.
PC users used You can also modify your HD drive to do the opposite : file behave as a HD hole on DD diskone (but this would be permanent of course)...this worked well sometimes.Check for appropriate jumpers on your drive!
== A clever choice ==
Many Modern CPC users replace their old 3" with an external 3"1/2, often adding a Disk drive A-B / B-A switcher (allowing the use of an external disk Drive as if it were the internal one = Drive A) and/or a side switcher to allow the use of a 3"1/2 disk like a 3" disk... switching manually the sides as needed by good old 3" disk drives (yet a decent sofware software can do it).
The side switcher and A-B drive's switchers are needed only if you use old software(using [[AMSDOS|AMSDOS]]), as most of them couldn't really figure they were loaded from B driversdrives, or had no such feature as double sided drives.
They were designed for good old 3" drive so the 720KB DD external 3"1/2 is not implemented.
Orion Prime uses the Double side feature, enabling a simple 720KB disk with no manual side switches.
Rick Dangerous 128+ (1.1 addonadd-on) seems to allow the game to be loaded from the B drive.
It is up to the CPC-scene to design their softwares software to include those options, allowing more un-modded drives to be simply used as external B drives with no need to add extra buttons and cable assemblies on the Amstrad.
As modifying all the software library of the good old times seems impractical, yet modern era software have to use this.
*any scavenged rusty junk may be good enough nowaday, if you have a 664 or 6128...
==GuideConnections and Wiring == [[DIY:Floppy_Drives]] == Guides ==
[[Guide on how to connect a 3.5]]<br>
[[Guide on how to connect a 3.5" drive to a CPC6128/664]] with photos
[[Amstrad Computer User]] magazine published a two-page guide on how to connect a 5.25" drive to a CPC 464:
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[[Category:Hardware]][[Category:Peripherals]][[Category:DATA Storage]]