2.5 KiB
Using the FluxEngine client software with GreaseWeazle hardware
The FluxEngine isn't the only project which does this; another one is the GreaseWeazle, a Blue Pill based completely open source solution. This requires more work to set up (or you can buy a prebuilt GreaseWeazle board), but provides completely open source hardware which doesn't require the use of the Cypress Windows-based tools that the FluxEngine does. Luckily, the FluxEngine software supports it almost out-of-the-box --- just plug it in and nearly everything should work. You will need to tell FluxEngine which serial port the GreaseWeazle is plugged in with:
fluxengine read ibm -o ibm.img --usb.greaseweazle=/dev/ttyACM3
On Windows, use COM1/COM2/COM3 etc for the port.
I am aware that having software called FluxEngine and hardware called FluxEngine makes things complicated when you're not using the FluxEngine client software with a FluxEngine board, but I'm afraid it's too late to change that now. Sorry.
If you were using a previous version on Windows you might have installed
the WinUSB driver. That's no longer needed, and will in fact not work. You'll
need to use Zadig to restore the old driver; to do this, make sure the left
Driver box says WinUSB and the right one says USB Serial (CDC). Then press
Replace Driver. You won't need Zadig any more.
What works
Supported features with the GreaseWeazle include:
- simple reading and writing of disks, seeking etc
- erasing disks
- determining disk rotation speed
What doesn't work
(I'm still working on this. If you have an urgent need for anything, please file an issue and I'll see what I can do.)
- voltage measurement
- hard sectored disks (you can still read these, but you can't use
--fluxsource.drive.hard_sector_count).
Who to contact
I want to make it clear that the FluxEngine code is not supported by the GreaseWeazle team. If you have any problems, please contact me and not them.
In addition, the GreaseWeazle release cycle is not synchronised to the FluxEngine release cycle, so it's possible you'll have a version of the GreaseWeazle firmware which is not supported by FluxEngine. Hopefully, it'll detect this and complain. Again, file an issue and I'll look into it.