wDrive
Apple II wDrive Disk Drive Emulator - Image 2
Apple II wDrive Disk Drive Emulator - Image 3
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Apple II wDrive Disk Drive Emulator - Image 5

Apple II wDrive Disk Drive Emulator

(7 customer reviews)

Price range: $78.90 through $98.80

The wDrive is a disk drive emulator for the Apple II (II+, IIe, IIc, IIGS) that boots disk images (WOZ, DSK, 2MG, HDV, etc) from an SD card.

SKU: WDRIVE Category: Tags: ,

Description

This is the wDrive Disk Drive Emulator Card from Mfa2 Workshop. The wDrive lets your Apple II use disk images stored on an SD card.

Tip: If you have an Apple II+ or IIe, you might want to also purchase the SoftSP card, which lets you boot hard drive images on an Apple II+ or Apple IIe (not needed for the IIc or IIGS).

Note: For Apple IIc users, the wDrive does not come with a DB19 to IDC20 adapter – you will need to purchase that separately. Good choices are here or here

Features

  • Emulates an Apple II 5.25” floppy or SmartPort device.
  • Supports floppy disk images in WOZ, NIB, EDF, DSK, DO and PO.
  • Supports Hard Drive, 400K, and 800K images in PO, HDV and 2MG format.
  • Supports up to four SmartPort disk images (see below for details)
  • Emulates 3.5” drive for 800K WOZ images (read only).
  • SoftSP SmartPort driver so Apple II, II+, and IIe machines can use some hard drive disk images through the Disk II (does not work with software that requires the upper 64k memory bank).
  • Supports disk read/write for DSK, NIB, EDF, and WOZ file formats.
  • Supports 13-sector disk images (press LEFT button once when booting 13-sector images).
  • Supports quarter tracks.
  • On-screen boot menu.
  • Built-in Locksmith Fast Copy and edfwrite (write copy-protected images to real floppy disk).
  • Integrates 4am’s Anti-m boot (see instructions below).
  • Supports SD, SDHC and SDXC memory cards (Fat16/Fat32 file format). SD card not included.
  • Comparison of the wDrive and FloppyEmu

 

Compatibility

 

Downloads

SD Cards

The wDrive uses a standard-sized SD card. For storage capacity, smaller is usually better. Between 1 and 16 Gb is plenty for all Apple II purposes. To avoid issues do not go above 32 Gb. SD cards usually come pre-formatted and you should not need to reformat. However, if you do, you should format the SD card as FAT16 or FAT32. Do not use vFAT or ExFAT format – those will not work.

On Windows, open File Explorer, right click the SD card, select Format, choose FAT32, then click Start.

On Mac, open Disk Utility, select your SD card from the sidebar, click Erase, choose MS-DOS (FAT) from the format dropdown, and click Erase to complete the process.

On Linux, you may need to do extra steps to reformat. In the terminal, type lsblk to determine where the card is mounted. Then type:
sudo parted /dev/<sdmountloc> –script — mklabel msdos
sudo parted /dev/<sdmountloc> –script — mkpart primary fat32 1MiB 100%
sudo mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/<sdmountloc>

where <sdmountloc> is the location that you determined from the lsblk command.

Update the wDrive Firmware

  1. Download the firmware ZIP file (above) and unzip it.
  2. Copy the “wdrive.bin” file onto the root directory of your wDrive SD card.
  3. Turn on your Apple II.
  4. On the wDrive, press the LEFT + SELECT (middle) buttons.
  5. Press the wDrive RESET button on the side; release the RESET button.
  6. The wDrive screen should show “Release key…”.
  7. Release the two buttons and wait for the wDrive to update the firmware and reboot.

wDrive On-screen Menu

  1. Download the firmware ZIP file (above) and unzip it.
  2. Copy the “wdmain.dat” file onto the root directory of your wDrive SD card.
  3. Turn on your Apple II.

Apple IIGS Usage

On the Apple IIGS, there are two different modes, depending upon whether you are using a floppy disk image (WOZ, NIB, EDF, DSK, DO and PO) or hard drive image (PO, HDV and 2MG). This assumes that the wDrive is plugged into the DB19 disk drive port on the back of the computer. For floppy disk images, go into the IIGS control panel menu (Ctrl+OpenApple+ESC), navigate to Control Panel -> Slots -> Slot 5. Use the right arrow key to change to “Your card”, then quit the menu system. For hard drive images, change slot 5 to “SmartPort”, then quit the menu system.

Apple IIc Usage

If you plug the wDrive into the external DB19 drive connector (using an IDC20 to DB19 adapter), you will only be able to boot SmartPort hard drive disk images (PO, HDV, 2MG). To boot these disk images, turn on the Apple IIc, press Ctrl+Reset to get to the Applesoft BASIC prompt, then type PR#5.

If you want to boot regular disk images (DSK or WOZ), one option is to disconnect the internal floppy drive and replace it with the wDrive. This will then allow you to boot floppy disk images on the wDrive as if it were the floppy drive.

If you want to boot both hard drive and floppy disk images, another option is the BMOW Internal/External Drive Switcher. This allows you to boot either from the internal floppy drive or the external wDrive.

Built-in Locksmith, edfwrite, and Anti-m

The wDrive has built-in copies of Locksmith and edfwrite. You can invoke these from the on-screen menu by selecting a disk image and then pressing Ctrl+C (Locksmith) or Ctrl+W (edfwrite). Note: These shortcuts won’t do anything if you have a directory selected. By default the disk image that was selected will be the one that gets copied. However, once Locksmith or edfwrite starts up you can change the disk image using the wDrive up/down buttons and then hitting the select button.

The wDrive also has a keyboard shortcut to invoke 4am’s anti-m boot program. To use this, you first need to download the anti-m disk image and put it on the root of the SD card with the name “anti-m.dsk”. Then, press Ctrl+A when you have a disk image selected (not a directory). By default the disk image that was selected will be the one used in anti-m. However, once anti-m starts up you can change the disk image using the wDrive up/down buttons and then hitting the select button.

Mount Multiple SmartPort Disk Images

When you select a SmartPort disk image using the on-screen menu, the wDrive will automatically mount the next three SmartPort disk images. To avoid confusion, it is recommended that you only have four SmartPort disk images on your SD card, and then be sure to select the first disk image in the list.

Update the SoftSP Firmware

  1. Download the firmware ZIP file (above) and unzip it.
  2. Copy the “softspr_allslot_v62.po” file onto the root directory of your wDrive SD card.
  3. Turn on your Apple II.
  4. Select the “softspr_allslot_v62.po” file and boot the disk.
  5. Choose option 2 and pick the slot containing your SoftSP card.
  6. Choose option 4 to upgrade the SoftSP card.

 

Additional information

Weight 15 oz
Dimensions 6 × 3 × 1 in
Option

wDrive only (Apple IIc and IIGS), wDrive plus SoftSP card (Apple II, II+, IIe)

7 reviews for Apple II wDrive Disk Drive Emulator

  1. Rudy –

    Amazing product!! Works great in my IIe and love the fact that there is a menu on the Apple screen. Makes it easier to find and select your program. Thanks for the great product!!

  2. Steve B (verified owner) –

    Great little device and awesome price, thanks.

  3. George E –

    I’ve bought several of these before they were available here and love them all. I have one each for my IIc, IIe and IIgs. I’m glad to see them available here. The only Apple I had issues with is my Apple III – it works but isn’t as stable as a normal Apple II. For the Apple III I can use the FloppyEmu so all bases are covered.

  4. Martijn –

    Is this device still available and can it be used on the ITT 2020 Apple II clone as well?

    • Chris Torrence –

      Thanks for your interest! Yes, the wDrive is still in production, but in limited quantities. If you add your email to the list (in the product page) then you will be notified. We have not tested the wDrive on an ITT 2020, but as long as a regular Disk II drive works with a regular Disk II Analog card in the ITT 2020, then the wDrive should work fine.

  5. Greg Notske (verified owner) –

    I love my wDrive and use it on my IIgs over its smartport. I’ve seen in the features that it will automatically mount 4 partitions, but there’s nothing that says what the files need to be named or how to select them in the UI. I’d really like to get that going … especially since when I boot into a GS/OS disk image it seems to be trying to find the other disks already and keeps telling me to rename drives. Any hints or links to additional docs? Thanks again for the great products and support

    • Chris Torrence –

      Good point – I just updated the description. In short, when you select a SmartPort disk image using the on-screen menu, the wDrive will automatically mount the next three SmartPort disk images.

  6. Matthew (verified owner) –

    I love it! One thing I’m not clear on, though – when viewing the contents of the SD card on my Apple IIe monitor, sometimes the contents of the folders are alphabetized, sometimes not. What am I missing about how to get them to always be alphabetized? Thank you!

    • Chris Torrence –

      Glad you like it Matthew! Good question on the alphabetization – I’m not sure why it would be out of order. One thing I’ve noticed – if you create the SD card on a Mac, you’ll end up with lots of “spoo” files and folders. You can remove those by using “dot_clean” just before ejecting the SD card from your Mac. Perhaps those hidden files are confusing the wDrive menu? If you created the SD card on Windows or Linux, then I’m really not sure why they would be out of order. Just for fun, maybe try completely erasing the SD card and dropping all the files back onto it again.

  7. Matthew (verified owner) –

    Thank you, Chris! I tried dot_clean and it did not work. The only way my wDrive shows files alphabetized on the Apple II monitor is on the root directory. All files and folders in subdirectories are in random order. Going back to previous firmwares didn’t fix it either. Eventually I figured out that if I manually create the needed directories on the wDrive and then copy the contents of a folder from my HDD into the existing folder on the wDrive (not dragging the folder to copy it, but the contents themselves), then the contents will show up alphabetized on the Apple II monitor with my wDrive. So I did this for all the directories and subdirectories, and now the contents are finally alphabetized. The directories themselves still aren’t, but I can’t figure out how to make that happen!

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