PSR740 midi files not copying to floppy or USB drive

[Alan Bichard]

Hi there
Can I please get help with the following problem.
I have tried in vain to copy midi files from my hard drive to my floppy disc. I changed it to a USB emulator only to find the same problem.
I have Windows 10 on my computer. If I format the small 2mb USB drive on the computer the keyboard with FAT does not recognise it. If format it on the keyboard the computer does not recognise it.
After doing a lot of checking Ifound there are two formats of FAT,eg  FATA   and FATB which I cannot see on my computer.
I have tried all other of formats on my computer exfat,fat32 etc but the problem still exists.
I would really appreciate is someone could resolve this problem for me
Thank you very much Alan Bichard
 

[Alan Bichard]

Board psr740 Midi files no copying to floppy drive or newly installed USB emulator

[GeirH]

Hi Alan,

First off, I would guess that your floppy emulator probably is a Guets are not allowed to view links. In order to access the links, please Register or Login unit, since they seem to be the most widely used. There are many variants, though, with different capabilities, so please find out what type you have and read the following with that in mind.

A floppy emulator is a nice way to future-proof your instrument. Your USB drive (which I assume must be 2 GB, rather than 2 MB) has the capacity to store hundreds of virtual floppy disks, and the floppy emulator can indeed handle hundreds of them. Just like on your old floppy drive, however, you can only use one of these virtual disks at a time. You may therefore find it helpful to think of the USB drive and floppy emulator as something like a jukebox or CD-changer, where we have to select which record to play each time.

The emulator communicates with your PSR-740's internal floppy controller chip in the same way that the old floppy drive did, but it reads and writes the actual data on a standard USB flash drive. Your USB drive should therefore be formatted on the computer using FAT32, and not one of the legacy formats you mentioned. That is only the first step, though; The formatted USB drive needs some further preparation in order to work in the emulator.

An empty USB drive, like an empty jukebox, is not very useful here. The USB drive has to contain virtual floppy disk images, that the emulator can present to the PSR-740. These images are in essence files that contain other files (similar to *.zip archives on the computer). The emulator simply selects one of the images from the USB drive and gives the PSR-740 access to the data contained within that image. If no images are there, the PSR-740 will simply react with errors, as if you were trying to load data from an empty floppy disk drive.

The virtual floppy disk images themselves can be empty, just like a real blank floppy, or they may contain up to 1.44 MB of data, but the images must be there in order for the PSR-740 to recognize anything. The virtual floppy disk images can be created on your USB drive in different ways, depending on the firmware of your Gotek unit:

• Older firmware types, such as the original Gotek firmware, uses numbered folders on the USB drive to represent floppy disks (one folder = one floppy disk). You can cycle between these folders using the Guets are not allowed to view links. In order to access the links, please Register or Login. To set up these folders automatically on the Gotek, insert an empty (FAT32 formatted) USB drive and then hold both buttons while powering up the keyboard. There is also free software available, such as Guets are not allowed to view links. In order to access the links, please Register or Login, that allows you to configure the USB drive on the computer instead. It also lets you easily copy data to the images. A guide is found here.
   
  
• More recent 3rd party firmware, such as Guets are not allowed to view links. In order to access the links, please Register or Login, uses a different type of image files (*.ima or *.img) to represent your floppy disks (one file = one floppy disk). One of the benefits is that each floppy image can be named, for easier browsing when the Gotek unit has been upgraded with a proper display. However, you will also need different software, such as Guets are not allowed to view links. In order to access the links, please Register or Login (which is only free for 30 days), to create these image files on your computer. A brief guide on how to use Winimage can be found Guets are not allowed to view links. In order to access the links, please Register or Login.
   
  
• Other 3rd party firmware, such as Guets are not allowed to view links. In order to access the links, please Register or Login, can - among other things - create actual partitions on your USB drive. It's a payed upgrade, though, and I'm not very familiar with it.

The original Gotek emulators only have 7-segment numeric display (some with 2 digits, others with 3) and two buttons. It can also be upgraded, however, and some vendors sell units with an additional rotary encoder for easier navigation and an OLED display capable of showing text. These units also have improved firmware, most often of the FlashFloppy type.

Regardless of the Gotek variant you have, the basic operation is the same; You have to select which floppy image to "insert" into your instrument at any given time. Once a floppy has been selected on the emulator, you can work with its contents (load, save, format, etc.) from the instrument's own File menu.

- H -

[GeirH]

So, just to sum things up:

Floppy emulation simply means "fooling" the original system (PSR-740) into thinking that it still talks to a floppy drive. To do this, a freshly formatted USB stick is not enough, unfortunately.

My previous post only serves as a technical introduction, since we don't know what specific emulator you're using. Some more details would help me provide a more thorough, step-by-step walkthrough.

If you have more questions, don't hesitate to let us know!

- H -