After reset, the device emulates floppy images from a modern storage medium.
For a visual walkthrough on preparing your Gotek and installing custom firmware, this guide is helpful:
The HxC Floppy Emulator project solves this problem. It allows users to replace obsolete mechanical floppy drives with modern SD card or USB storage solutions. Hxc-fw-installer.hex
The only official sources are:
Hxc-fw-installer.hex is a specialized firmware file used to update or install the HxC Floppy Emulator firmware onto compatible hardware devices. It acts as a bridge, allowing older hardware that relies on physical floppy disks to use modern SD cards or USB drives for data storage. What is Hxc-fw-installer.hex? After reset, the device emulates floppy images from
Erase the existing flash memory on the chip to prevent corruption.
The bootloader is installed, but the main firmware has not been installed yet. The only official sources are: Hxc-fw-installer
For ARTERY AT32-based Gotek units, there is an alternative bootloader installation method that uses a USB-A-to-USB-A cable instead of a serial TTL adapter. This method uses the software.
The official Hxc-fw-installer.hex downloaded from the HxC 2001 website (requires a purchased license voucher).
Most modern HxC Rev C boards feature a USB DFU bootloader. This is the easiest method.